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[electricitymonitor-blog]

Why people use Ohm assistant?

Reason #1

Episode: An early morning support-call

Date: 4th April, 2019

It felt like middle of the night when the phone rang. It was a retired scientist who would live with his wife in a peaceful suburb of Mumbai. He would often visit his daughters who lived in the same city and track real-time electricity consumption of his home. As a practice, we would meet our users once a month and have shared our personal phone numbers to first 250 users.

There was a sense of urgency in his voice which triggered a gut wrenching feeling in me. My mind ran a deduction of events/ scenarios about what could possibly have gone wrong. All this even before the first sentence was uttered. These were days when we didn’t have a ticketing system.

He explains that he invited his grand-daughter to stay with them. The grand-daughter would need AC in the night. Poor grand-parents tolerated the chill for the night but later chose of turn the AC off when it became unbearable. After turning off the AC, he checked his ‘Ohm Assistant’ as a compulsive habit and realized the AC was still on! He tried turning the AC on & off multiple times but there was very little change that he observed. His point was – the Ohm Assistant doesn’t work and is giving wrong data.

App not working is a much simpler problem to resolve compared to possible situations of an emergency call from a customer in the middle of the night. I gathered his customer ID and was able to validate that the device was live and all the processes were stable. Next step was to address the customer problem and validate whether or not was it a product level issue. This meant a greater access to the data which was only possible in the presence of the CIO. And it didn’t feel right to escalate the issue at 4:12 AM in the morning. Understanding my hesitation, he video-called from his wife’s phone. Indeed, the app indicated that something like an AC could be on right then. And then he also pointed towards the AC and in-fact took me to different rooms to show other ACs were also off! While doing so, he also turned on the lights and fan of the drawing room and the app responded to the change.

In my head, it wasn’t a product level issue any more. However, I just couldn’t figure out what could lead to this abnormality. I asked him to turn on the geysers and the power consumption shot-up and he quickly turned them off even before the lag of the WhatsApp video allowed me to observe the change. At this point, the customer took pity at my state and he probably observed my state for the first time and realized that I was still very sleepy. He suggested we should connect in 4 hours’ time. Meanwhile, we both came to a consensus that let’s turn the AC off from its dedicated switch on the switch-board.  

At 4:35, I received a smiley with a message saying, “the consumption came down! But I am confused”! Although happy, I wasn’t sleepy any more. So, I asked him if he wants to resolve the issue right then. To his he responded by calling back in few seconds. This time, however, I could hear people in his house cursing him and his new toy, ‘Ohm Assistant’. An otherwise gentle lady grumbled and voice faded very quickly. She must have left the room. The old man laughed and he makes a video call and shows me that the moment he turns on the switch of the AC (although the AC is turned off from its remote), the power consumption surges up. A quick search on the internet showed me that it could be because of multiple issues with most probable problem being ACs’ outdoor unit may not be turning off because of a ‘Stuck contactor’. Over time the contacts can become pitted and worn and the AC’s outdoor unit could keep running even if you have turned off the AC from its remote.

Like him, many users wanted OHM Assistant to help them diagnose an issue. So, we partnered with multiple leading AMC service providers in India to diagnose appliance level issues. While we are good at detecting the sick appliance, our partners are champions of servicing them. This allows our users to not fall for the standard scam of typical technicians: ACs’ gas leaked. You need to pay for the refill. With this, Ohm Assistant is becoming a must of product in Mumbaikars’ lives.

Customer opinion about Ohm Assistant: He has referred us to multiple neighbours since then

Product idea through customer problem: Diagnosis and third-party integration

OHM Assistant process improvement aspired: Customer grievances ticketing system for seamless support

[electricitymonitor-blog]

Why people use Ohm assistant?

Reason #1

Episode: An early morning support-call

Date: 4th April, 2019

It felt like middle of the night when the phone rang. It was a retired scientist who would live with his wife in a peaceful suburb of Mumbai. He would often visit his daughters who lived in the same city and track real-time electricity consumption of his home. As a practice, we would meet our users once a month and have shared our personal phone numbers to first 250 users.

There was a sense of urgency in his voice which triggered a gut wrenching feeling in me. My mind ran a deduction of events/ scenarios about what could possibly have gone wrong. All this even before the first sentence was uttered. These were days when we didn’t have a ticketing system.

He explains that he invited his grand-daughter to stay with them. The grand-daughter would need AC in the night. Poor grand-parents tolerated the chill for the night but later chose of turn the AC off when it became unbearable. After turning off the AC, he checked his ‘Ohm Assistant’ as a compulsive habit and realized the AC was still on! He tried turning the AC on & off multiple times but there was very little change that he observed. His point was – the Ohm Assistant doesn’t work and is giving wrong data.

App not working is a much simpler problem to resolve compared to possible situations of an emergency call from a customer in the middle of the night. I gathered his customer ID and was able to validate that the device was live and all the processes were stable. Next step was to address the customer problem and validate whether or not was it a product level issue. This meant a greater access to the data which was only possible in the presence of the CIO. And it didn’t feel right to escalate the issue at 4:12 AM in the morning. Understanding my hesitation, he video-called from his wife’s phone. Indeed, the app indicated that something like an AC could be on right then. And then he also pointed towards the AC and in-fact took me to different rooms to show other ACs were also off! While doing so, he also turned on the lights and fan of the drawing room and the app responded to the change.

In my head, it wasn’t a product level issue any more. However, I just couldn’t figure out what could lead to this abnormality. I asked him to turn on the geysers and the power consumption shot-up and he quickly turned them off even before the lag of the WhatsApp video allowed me to observe the change. At this point, the customer took pity at my state and he probably observed my state for the first time and realized that I was still very sleepy. He suggested we should connect in 4 hours’ time. Meanwhile, we both came to a consensus that let’s turn the AC off from its dedicated switch on the switch-board.  

At 4:35, I received a smiley with a message saying, “the consumption came down! But I am confused”! Although happy, I wasn’t sleepy any more. So, I asked him if he wants to resolve the issue right then. To his he responded by calling back in few seconds. This time, however, I could hear people in his house cursing him and his new toy, ‘Ohm Assistant’. An otherwise gentle lady grumbled and voice faded very quickly. She must have left the room. The old man laughed and he makes a video call and shows me that the moment he turns on the switch of the AC (although the AC is turned off from its remote), the power consumption surges up. A quick search on the internet showed me that it could be because of multiple issues with most probable problem being ACs’ outdoor unit may not be turning off because of a ‘Stuck contactor’. Over time the contacts can become pitted and worn and the AC’s outdoor unit could keep running even if you have turned off the AC from its remote.

Like him, many users wanted OHM Assistant to help them diagnose an issue. So, we partnered with multiple leading AMC service providers in India to diagnose appliance level issues. While we are good at detecting the sick appliance, our partners are champions of servicing them. This allows our users to not fall for the standard scam of typical technicians: ACs’ gas leaked. You need to pay for the refill. With this, Ohm Assistant is becoming a must of product in Mumbaikars’ lives.

Customer opinion about Ohm Assistant: He has referred us to multiple neighbours since then

Product idea through customer problem: Diagnosis and third-party integration

OHM Assistant process improvement aspired: Customer grievances ticketing system for seamless support