Transforming Support with QR Codes powered Digital Manuals

The lights on your color printer won’t stop blinking red. You’ve navigated the manufacturer’s website but you’re having trouble finding the right make and model, let alone the troubleshooting guide. If only you could get one-click access to a curated site for your specific machine.

What if there was a QR Code right on your printer that took you to a portal that was purpose-built for your specific make and model. One scan and you’re exactly where you want to be, with all the resources (and just the resources) for your product.

Using QR codes to activate custom digital manuals for products can be a convenient and efficient way to get product specific relevant information, when and where customers need it most.

With Openscreen Engage, manufacturers can easily create device-specific support flows that increase issue-resolution rates and client satisfaction. Here’s how:

  1. Design & Host Product Specific Digital Manuals
    Use Openscreen Engage’s Page and Form manager to drag-and-drop digital manuals for each of your products. They can include text instructions, images, diagrams, videos, or a combination of these elements.  They can also include content from your existing site but organized in a product-specific way. 
  2. Design, Generate & Print Branded QR Codes:
    Once your microsites are done, use the QR Code studio to design a branded QR Code that integrates seamlessly into your product’s look and feel.   Leverage the print wizard to generate sheets, rolls or even digital files to include ON your actual product.
  3. Clone Existing Manuals for New Products
    Openscreen Engage’s page and form cloning feature means you don’t have to start from scratch when you have new product SKUs.  Just clone the manual of an existing product and change what you need.  You’ll have QR Codes for your entire lineup, in minutes.
  4. Track Issues & Dynamically Optimize Your Manual
    With the Openscreen Engage dashboard and reporting function, you’ll be able to track the usage of your manuals with every scan and understand what products and issues are driving support requests.  Based on these insights, you can change your content at any time.
  5. Replenish, Cross-Sell and Upsell Too:
    Digital manuals don’t need to be used for support alone.  Give your customers links to order supplies, upgrade equipment or buy complementary products.  Leverage every interaction to drive more revenue.
  6. Add a Form for Customer Feedback
    Your digital manuals don’t have to stop at one-way content.  Using Openscreen Engage’s Form Manager, get feedback from your customers WHILE they’re using your products.  They’re the best to let you know how you can engineer a more perfect product and user experience.

By incorporating contextual QR codes ONTO your products, manufacturers can optimize the customer support experience while meaningfully reduce costs and time-to-resolution. 

To begin your free trial of Openscreen Engage for on product digital manuals, click here. 

Tracking the QR Opportunity

Introduction

Digital menus, product packaging, tickets, and identification – QR Codes seem everywhere now. Once an overlooked, clunky technology, QR Codes have had a recent resurgence. Thanks to COVID-19 and advancements in our mobile devices, QR adoption has gone mainstream in only a few short years. And even though global QR Code scans increased by 443% in 2022, we are still only scratching the surface of harnessing the true power and business augmentation that they provide.

If we think back to the inception of QR Codes, invented by Denso Wave in 1994, the original problem that led to this invention was that the Toyota subsidiary needed a more accurate way to track vehicles and parts during the manufacturing process. QR codes solved that problem. But they were still a little ahead of their time. The internet, mobile devices, and apps were just distant dreams. Only with these technological advances will the full potential of QR Codes be realized. Today, the combination of this new technology with QR codes provides limitless potential for frictionless asset management solutions. While many applications have emerged to tackle a wide variety of QR Code-powered use cases, when used correctly, QR Codes provide a superior asset management experience around initiating, tracking, managing and enabling enterprise supply chains in diverse industries.

Controlling QR “State”

One of the features that QR Codes offer is immense versatility. With this inherent level of flexibility comes more possible applications and use cases. It’s important to see through the “QR Noise” and identify areas where QR Codes truly add value and are not a marketing gimmick. Enabling supply chains is just that — an area where QR Code technology provides a well-positioned foundation to build robust solutions, enabling key stakeholders to have timely information as assets flow through their supply chain. When it comes to an asset moving through a supply chain, whether that’s an automobile part, router, soil sample, or medical instruments tray, there are common themes. First, security and authentication – who will be able to access the information stored on that QR code? How will the security be enforced? Will there be different roles or access delegation? Does the asset’s status, quantity, location, condition, and value change over its life? These are all relevant questions that Openscreen can help solve and manage when using our platform to automate and enable your supply chain. While we are all familiar with the QR code that scans to a website, in many cases a QR code may be needed but the data, workflow, or destination may not be known. Openscreen’s platform can create “inactive” QRs, which can be appended to any asset. Once the data or workflows are defined, the QR code is simply scanned to initiate it and registered as active. All subsequent scans would follow the programmed workflows. Openscreen’s ability to change the status and workflow of a QR code as it moves through your supply chain facilitates the creation of powerful tracking enablement solutions. And our flexibility makes it easy to rapidly integrate this functionality into your mission-critical supply chain processes.

Controlling QR “View”

One of the biggest challenges with robust tracking applications is mobility and internet connectivity. Without an internet connection, many platforms fail. Openscreen Track is a solution that allows you to capture data without a live internet connection and then post that data when a connection is available. Openscreen Track can also create access restrictions that control who can access which data points. A manufacturer, vendor, or customer scanning the same QR code would have different permissions, workflows, and ultimately end views. To illustrate this point further, take an automobile part as an example. As it passes through its lifecycle from manufacturing to a final consumer, the company’s authenticated users will want to see and access different pieces of information than what will be relevant to consumers and the public. Openscreen Track makes this level of dual visibility possible and easy.

Blue background image with car part scanned to phone to register

 

It’s Not ALL About the QR

As our CTO reminds our team and our clients, “The QR Code is just the front door in.” What does he mean exactly by this? Well, QR Codes are a great entry point for causing a specific intent to occur, i.e., bringing a user to a specific URL or website, but that’s just the beginning; it’s the logic, foundation, and set of valuable micro-services built behind the QR that really allow the magic to happen. The Openscreen platform has been built as a developer-first platform and has been architected with 5 core objects (Scans, Assets, QR Codes, Messages, & Contacts).  These building blocks can be rapidly stitched together to enable powerful tracking solutions for enterprises. Nuvolinq, an IoT service provider, uses Openscreen’s QR platform to track, manage, and submit service calls for their routers. The QR code used by support staff to register a router is the same QR code used by customers to submit a trouble ticket. The workflows change, but the QR code remains constant. From sending a message to specific contacts upon a QR scan to triggering a status change from “inactive” to “active”, sending and receiving goods, transferring ownership, and changing data points, Openscreen’s Track solution can help businesses enable their supply chains quickly while reducing costs, automating mission-critical processes, and putting valuable business insights at management’s fingertips. Try it today for free at www.openscreen.com or reach out to us at sales@openscreen.com to learn more!

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