Guardian Protection has partnered with Blitzz, a live mobile video platform for remote customer support, to launch a new virtual appointments service for the majority of its more than 250,000 residential customers.

The service uses augmented reality (AR) technology to help agents quickly and easily resolve customer queries that potentially require a service visit, over a live video call instead, according to an announcement. Guardian’s customer care agent sends a link to the customer via SMS text message. Once clicked, agent and customer can troubleshoot a system issue together using a live video stream through the customer’s mobile phone camera, without downloading an app like Zoom or Teams. 

The agent can visually assess the customer’s system and system components remotely and guide the customer in troubleshooting and can also assist the customer in self-installing a previously shipped part such as a replacement battery. The result is successful enablement of the security device or full restoration of the system itself, according to the announcement. Agents and customers can also use AR to draw on the screen in real-time and identify issue-related areas.

“Blitzz has been a great asset in supporting our goal to provide outstanding care to our customers. They need not take off work or bear the potential cost of an onsite service call,” said Jason Bradley, COO, Guardian Protection. “We simply schedule a 30-minute appointment that is convenient. Appointments are averaging 24 minutes in length and 93 percent of issues are successfully resolved.”

Bradley continued, “I’m also pleased to say that we are exceeding our goal in the number of customers who accept a Virtual Appointment option. When we selected Blitzz for this purpose, we liked that our agents and our customers could connect easily via their smartphone, without downloading and signing-in to an app.”