Video: Crowd-as-a-Service could be the way of solving technical problems of the future
If you have been following the tech industry in the recent years (or even longer), you could notice a trend among companies in making every existing product category “as a service”. Today, we find music-as-a-service (Spotify, Deezer) completely normal, and we saw other industries going to a “service” or subscription based model, too. It was just a matter of time when people will become a service, and Nokia announced just that in a recent YouTube video.
OK, I was a little joking in the part of people as a service, and honestly, I’m not even sure what that means exactly, but the title “Crowd-as-a-Service” on Nokia’s latest video really leaves one confused, until he watches the video. The video follows down below.
Video description: We believe in the possibility of crowdsourcing to assist people with the complexity of smart home devices. That is why Nokia is shaping the future of Crowd-as-a-Service – to enable communications service providers to enlist tech-savvy civilians in helping owners and renters of homes troubleshoot and discover the capabilities of their smart home products and features.
In the video, Nokia describes a concept where skilled technicians will be connected through a service to people in their communities that need their services. Then, the technician and the customer will make arrangements about a visit and agree on a fair price, and the customer’s problem with a gadget should be quickly resolved. Such approach would offer a faster and more flexible way of doing customer support, and will ease the workload from companies that usually do tech support for operators. The downside is that such a service could also negatively affect the tech support companies, but that’s the law of the free market.
Crowd-as-a-Service is basically a freelance service for technicians, and geographically-bound, because it will connect people mainly based on their location for convenience sake. And such a service could prove to be a good idea. It will not only open the opportunity for various skilled technicians, students or others with a certificate to earn extra money, but could skyrocket the satisfaction the customer has with the tech support. Just like you can give a grade to your Uber driver or leave a good review of a restaurant, “tech-savvy civilians” (term from the description of the video) would compete to raise the quality of their work to attract more customers. It’s also a way for operators to save money, and even further outsource tech support.
What do you think about this idea? Leave your comments down below. 🙂
Btw., I love the way how Nokia makes these videos. Clear, simple and easy to understand 🙂
