Lev­els of reliance on tech­nol­o­gy have been ris­ing con­sis­tent­ly in a mobile-first world and as people’s homes fill with inter­net-con­nect­ed devices. The Covid-19 pan­dem­ic has accel­er­at­ed that pro-cess dra­mat­i­cal­ly: con­nec­tiv­i­ty has become so inte­gral to con­sumers’ lives, includ­ing their work, that any down­time caus­es sig­nif­i­cant pain.

Yet down­time is ever more com­mon, with con­sumers increas­ing­ly need­ing to repair or replace their devices, find­ing they can­not make prod­ucts work as expect­ed, or that devices and apps from dif­fer­ent providers will not inte­grate well. Con­sumers’ need for unin­ter­rupt­ed con­nec­tiv­i­ty means that for any com­pa­ny sell­ing tech­nol­o­gy, there is a grow­ing need to pro­vide com­plete and rapid insur­ance, repair and replace­ment propo­si­tions in order to pro­tect user sat­is­fac­tion and, ulti­mate­ly, loy­al­ty.

“Tech­nol­o­gy has fun­da­men­tal­ly trans­formed the way every­one lives, works and inter­acts,” explains Rod Mil­lar, chief exec­u­tive at Likewize, the end-to-end device sup­port com­pa­ny for man­u­fac­tur­ers, net­work oper­a­tors, banks and some of the world’s largest brands. “With devices mat­ter­ing this much, it’s no sur­prise that when things go wrong, peo­ple feel pain and need it fixed quick­ly.”

Every day, con­sumers make a num­ber of urgent func­tion­al­i­ty, con­nec­tiv­i­ty and upgrade sup­port requests to busi­ness­es pro­vid­ing tech­nol­o­gy; that is aside from any need to replace devices fol­low­ing break­age, loss or theft. But typ­i­cal sup­port expe­ri­ences can be extreme­ly slow and frus­trat­ing. Too often, the web­sites of device man­u­fac­tur­ers or retail­ers, which are cus­tomers’ first port of call, are not up to the task, with FAQ pages that fail to answer com­mon queries, while search engines can pro­duce unhelp­ful results unless peo­ple enter exact­ly the right ter­mi­nol­o­gy.

Many brands are turn­ing to out­sourced sup­port so they can address cus­tomer prob­lems quick­ly and effi­cient­ly, leav­ing them to focus on core strate­gic aims. “It’s a nat­ur­al step for tech­nol­o­gy busi-ness­es to work with spe­cial­ist third-par­ty ser­vice providers to keep their cus­tomers con­nect­ed. This is sim­i­lar to how car com­pa­nies offer brand­ed break­down ser­vices that are ulti­mate­ly pro­vid­ed by ded­i­cat­ed road­side assis­tance firms,” Mil­lar says.

Likewize, for­mer­ly known as Bright­star, aims to cre­ate “a life unin­ter­rupt­ed” for con­sumers and is focused on “tak­ing this pain away, by deliv­er­ing effort­less cus­tomer care across all pos­si­ble prob­lem areas”, adds Mil­lar.

A core part of the sup­port expe­ri­ence trans­for­ma­tion is the Likewize knowl­edge cen­tre, which is used by cut­ting-edge busi­ness­es and pro­vides real lan­guage search. It does this by using arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence to inter­pret user ques­tions and pro­vide the right answers with a much greater degree of clar­i­ty and pre­ci­sion. Addi­tion­al­ly, its AI sys­tems quick­ly iden­ti­fy trend­ing search­es around new tech prob­lems so that impor­tant new queries can be answered, pre­sent­ing an oppor­tu­ni­ty for sig­nif­i­cant com­pet­i­tive edge.

With devices mat­ter­ing this much, it’s no sur­prise that when things go wrong, peo­ple feel
pain and need it fixed quick­ly

Using Likewize ser­vices, 98% of con­sumers’ sup­port queries are solved instant­ly, auto­mat­i­cal­ly and with lit­tle expense or human inter­ac­tion required by brands. Major device man­u­fac­tur­ers, phone net­work oper­a­tors, and online and in-store retail­ers all use Likewize ser­vices to pro­vide cus­tomer sup­port online, by phone, in store or at cus­tomers’ homes, when required.

“We help brands offer their cus­tomers com­plete solu­tions for fix­ing tech­nol­o­gy. We believe we should be wher­ev­er a cus­tomer wants us to be, so we offer solu­tions across all com­mu­ni­ca­tion chan­nels includ­ing online self-serve, chat­bots, live chat or call cen­tre staff. It is like an IT helpdesk that’s read­i­ly avail­able for cus­tomers in what­ev­er chan­nel they want. We can solve near­ly all prob-lems at this point, includ­ing through visu­al­i­sa­tions and 3D mod­el­ling to show cus­tomers exact­ly what to do,” explains Mil­lar.

By resolv­ing queries at the first point of con­tact, not only are cus­tomers kept sat­is­fied but unnec­es­sary costs are avoid­ed. “Every man­u­fac­tur­er, mobile oper­a­tor and retail­er knows of the immense cost of pro­cess­ing returns. Using our end-to-end ser­vices, eight out of 10 returns can be pre­vent­ed,” Mil­lar notes.

Likewize offers exper­tise from live chat agents to help estab­lish the root of the issue in a consumer’s home set­up. In the case of prod­ucts being dam­aged, new devices are sent out on behalf of the man­u­fac­tur­er or retail­er. Tech­nol­o­gy providers can choose all or just spe­cif­ic aspects of Likewize ser­vices; with the end-to-end ser­vice, even if cus­tomers begin a query online they can seam­less­ly con­tin­ue the process in store or by phone, and vice ver­sa.

Pro­vid­ing such ser­vices has only become pos­si­ble because Likewize has evolved from its ori­gins as a mobile device dis­trib­u­tor by embark­ing on major tech­nol­o­gy invest­ments and acqui­si­tions to pro­vide com­plete end-to-end prob­lem res­o­lu­tion ser­vices. “We could see that a home con­nec­tiv­i­ty and remote work­ing rev­o­lu­tion was hap­pen­ing even pri­or to the pan­dem­ic, and that there was going to be more demand for tech pro­tec­tion, quick repairs or replace­ments and pre­mi­um tech sup­port from home,” explains Mil­lar. “Those trends have been accel­er­at­ed by the Covid-19 cri­sis and our tech is now more cru­cial than ever. Work­ing with us, brands can ensure they solve all cus­tomer pain points quick­ly and effi­cient­ly.”

The range of tech­nol­o­gy com­pa­nies already work­ing with Likewize goes from Apple and Sam­sung, to Tele­fon­i­ca and Voda­fone, to Tesco and EE and beyond. Among clients, the impact on cus­tomer sup­port has been sig­nif­i­cant. One major retail­er has been able to imple­ment a pow­er­ful online helpdesk that has reduced the demand on call cen­tres. Else­where, a man­u­fac­tur­er has been able to out­source repair and war­ran­ty ser­vices, while dra­mat­i­cal­ly reduc­ing post­ed returns through online res­o­lu­tion.

“Com­pa­nies around the world rely on Likewize to increase cus­tomer sat­is­fac­tion and grow loy­al­ty while reduc­ing costs. As we like to say, we enable them to ‘love their cus­tomers for less’,” Mil­lar con­cludes. “Giv­en the mas­sive demands busi­ness­es face to pro­vide excel­lent prob­lem res­o­lu­tion afford­ably, now is the time to step ahead of their com­peti­tors by offer­ing pow­er­ful end-to-end cus-tomer sup­port.”

To find out more about how to solve cus­tomers’ tech­nol­o­gy prob­lems rapid­ly and effi­cient­ly, vis­it likewize.com

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Unrivalled support gives competitive edge

Rod Mil­lar, chief exec­u­tive at Likewize (for­mer­ly Bright­star), explains how many tech­nol­o­gy com­pa­nies are urgent­ly trans­form­ing cus­tomer sup­port

For any com­pa­ny mak­ing or sell­ing tech­nol­o­gy, what is the main rea­son to trans­form cus­tomer sup­port?

Even the best tech­nol­o­gy can go wrong or have prob­lems. Today’s con­sumers are huge­ly reliant on their devices, from their mobile phones and lap­tops to home automa­tion sys­tems and enter­tain­ment tech­nol­o­gy. The pro­lif­er­a­tion of Inter­net of Things devices that need to work togeth­er has mas­sive­ly height­ened the require­ment for excep­tion­al cus­tomer sup­port. And now, with so many peo­ple work-ing from home, there is reliance on con­tin­u­ous­ly func­tion­ing prod­ucts. When con­sumers have a device issue, it is the most like­ly moment they will leave a provider and switch to the com­pe­ti­tion. A good sup­port expe­ri­ence removes that risk and can deep­en brand loy­al­ty.

How do con­sumers nor­mal­ly try to solve tech­ni­cal prob­lems and what ser­vice do they receive?

Typ­i­cal­ly, con­sumers will vis­it the web­sites of the retail­er, oper­a­tor or man­u­fac­tur­er, or start search-ing around online. When they can­not get a sim­ple answer to their query, they’ll call the com­pa­nies involved or vis­it the store. How­ev­er, the com­plex­i­ty and array of dif­fer­ent prod­ucts they use means they often still do not get the right answers. If they can’t get the prod­uct to work as expect­ed, they’ll return it. So, it’s a frus­trat­ing process for con­sumers of not find­ing answers, spend­ing ages on the phone or hav­ing to go back into a shop. By con­trast, we can solve 98% of queries online, then help oth­er users by phone or in-per­son to fix any lin­ger­ing prob­lems. We quick­ly increase sat­is­fac­tion rates and pre­vent cost­ly returns.

Why should a com­pa­ny bring in Likewize instead of build­ing its own end-to-end sup­port?

We ensure brands can effi­cient­ly pro­tect, sup­port, repair and renew their con­sumers’ devices. Our entire busi­ness focus is cre­at­ing excel­lent, seam­less sup­port and remov­ing any bar­ri­ers to it, sat­is­fy­ing the mas­sive and con­tin­u­al­ly grow­ing need from con­sumers to get their devices work­ing again and remain con­nect­ed. Whether a device is lost, stolen, dam­aged, mal­func­tion­ing, in need of an upgrade, or the user does not know how to do some­thing, Likewize pro­vides a solu­tion.

When con­sumers have a device issue, it is the most like­ly moment they will leave a provider and switch to the com­pe­ti­tion

Brands want to avert neg­a­tive expe­ri­ences for con­sumers but doing so from end-to-end can be huge­ly com­plex and expen­sive. With our tech­nol­o­gy-backed intel­li­gent ser­vice and prod­uct experts read­i­ly avail­able, we are able to quick­ly solve all user even­tu­al­i­ties for com­pa­nies, so they focus on what is core to them, such as devel­op­ing or sell­ing prod­ucts.

What is the rea­son for your com­pa­ny name change to Likewize?

We have evolved con­sid­er­ably over many years. Ear­ly on, we recog­nised the grow­ing com­plex­i­ty and reliance peo­ple had on their tech­nol­o­gy in per­son­al and remote work con­texts. We have expand­ed to offer a com­plete after-sales ser­vice to address every cus­tomer device even­tu­al­i­ty: lost, stolen, dam­aged, mal­func­tion­ing, user error or need­ing upgrade. How­ev­er, research showed it was not always known that we did this, peo­ple still thought of us as a dis­trib­u­tor instead of the full-ser­vice tech pro­tec­tion and sup­port com­pa­ny we’ve become.

The com­pa­ny has been on a huge trans­for­ma­tion, so we felt the brand need­ed to change so peo­ple reassess us and under­stand why we make the world a bet­ter place. We chose the name Likewize because it means we are all alike, aligned with our cus­tomers on the need for unin­ter­rupt­ed con­nec­tiv­i­ty for their con­sumers. We recog­nise that we all can­not live hap­pi­ly or func­tion pro­duc­tive­ly with­out our devices. The name also reflects our aim of ensur­ing that users like the expe­ri­ence we pro­vide and trust us to offer intel­li­gent solu­tions.

How can com­pa­nies estab­lish a clear com­pet­i­tive edge in cus­tomer sup­port?

The only answer is by quick­ly meet­ing con­sumers’ expec­ta­tions. The world is impa­tient and peo­ple have com­plete depen­dence on their tech­nol­o­gy: they need their lap­top for work Zoom calls, their mobile phone to switch off their bur­glar alarm, pay­ment tech­nol­o­gy to use at the super­mar­ket, or a home automa­tion sys­tem that keeps life run­ning smooth­ly.

But the key advan­tage is not in sim­ply under­stand­ing con­sumers’ pain points but in being able to solve them quick­ly. By using our smart ser­vices, prob­lems can be resolved quick­ly and cost effec-tive­ly. Likewize end-to-end sup­port ensures any busi­ness pro­vid­ing tech­nol­o­gy can inno­v­a­tive­ly pro­vide the best pos­si­ble res­o­lu­tions and in doing so grow rela­tion­ships with high­ly sat­is­fied con­sumers.

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Pro­mot­ed by LikeWize