Many of us right now are at home, except for the essential workers that provide the products and services that sustain us there. The retail and wholesale workers that make up the critical supply chains and keep us fed are hard at work. Doctors, nurses and researchers are working nonstop to treat and find effective treatments that can stem the tide of this pandemic.
We’re able to stay comfortable and safe in our homes because of the advances in service provision that have taken place in recent years, largely enabled by technology. IFS Field Service Management software customers are a vital part of this system of support that allows us to remain safe in our homes. I would like to shine a spotlight on some of them, and publicly thank them here, now.
Keeping us warm and safe
It is no secret that heating and energy use in the home will have increased dramatically during this period of social isolation and home confinement.
Service organizations and regulators around the world, from the UK and Ireland to the United States are going to heroic lengths to service furnaces, boilers, and other in-home equipment to ensure we can safely and comfortably stay home.
We thank IFS customers like Baxi and Reliance Comfort for being there for their customers and being a trusted supplier during these critical times.
Keeping us fed
As food sales transition from institutional and restaurant settings into the consumer grocery channel, grocery retailers across the world are straining under the burden.
In the UK, grocery retailers added 45,000 new jobs, U.S.-based retailers are struggling to hire—with members of the American Bakers Association alone expected to hire 3,300 to continue producing fresh bread and coffee cake as we stay home.
IFS customers like Vista Retail, Spencer Technologies, Ingenico and CoolSys ensure the systems and capital equipment that keep these retailers up and running is operational, so all of us can get in and out of that retail setting and safely back home.
Keeping us connected and productive
Home broadband usage has increased dramatically, leading Ofcom in the UK and counterparts in other countries to classify communications providers as essential, encouraging them to move forward with infrastructure rollouts and connecting customers. According to Lightwave:
- Verizon is reporting call volumes have doubled, with calls running 33 percent longer, and the company is increasing capacity in small pockets where there has been a significant increase in usage.
- AT&T said live video views were up 25 percent and home, home broadband and wireless were up 19 percent, calling minutes were up by as much as 65 percent, and the company is adding network capacity as needed.
- CenturyLink is adding terabits of network capacity in areas outside of the United States to meet increased demand.
- Windstream is seeing 50 percent more voice traffic and 30 percent higher data traffic.
Thanks are due to IFS customers like Orange, TDC, STC for being there on the front lines of telecom service provision during the pandemic.
We are there for you
Just as our customers are there for all of us, IFS is there for them.
We will support you any way we can as you adjust to these new demands. We will support your current solutions. We will help you evaluate other tools that can let you serve more customers in the field, or leverage artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots to handle more customer inquiries.
We all have a role to play in these challenging times. But we salute you, our customers, who are on the front lines in this struggle, the most.
Learn more about how IFS serves these and other customers who are keeping our critical systems and infrastructure running in the midst of this global emergency.
Do you have questions or comments?
We’d love to hear them so please leave us a message below.
