The Challenge: Bridging the Distance for Dispersed Customers
SaskTel serves a diverse customer base, including a significant population of “very dispersed rural residents” who rely on the provider for telephone, internet, and TV services. Delivering consistent, efficient service across a wide geographical area presented two major challenges:
- High Cost of Truck Rolls: Dispatching technicians (truck rolls) to remote locations is a high operating expense. Reducing these site visits was a major KPI for the company’s bottom line.
- Adapting to Demand (The Pandemic Effect): The COVID-19 pandemic accelerated the need for efficient, remote installation and assisted-install methods, as customers were reluctant to have technicians enter their homes. SaskTel needed a seamless way to “expand our self-install or assisted-install methods that can be done remotely,” recalls Carmen Zimmerman, Business Consulting Manager.
Traditional phone support was proving inadequate for visual troubleshooting, creating frustration and necessitating unnecessary, expensive service calls.
The Solution: App-Free, Collaborative Video Support
After a successful 30-day free trial, SaskTel rolled out Blitzz Concierge as its primary tool for assisted-installation and technical support. Blitzz provided the seamless, app-free visual connection that SaskTel needed to reach its remote customer base effectively.
How Blitzz Concierge Works for SaskTel:
- Instant, App-Free Connection: Technical support agents send a simple link via SMS text message to the customer’s smartphone. The customer clicks the link, and the agent instantly sees the problem through the phone’s camera—no app downloads, user accounts, or third-party platforms required.
- Visual Troubleshooting: Agents can assess equipment, modem status, wiring, and TV settings remotely, eliminating the guesswork of verbal descriptions.
- Augmented Reality (AR) Guidance: Agents use AR tools to draw, circle, and annotate the customer’s live video stream, guiding them step-by-step through configuration changes or simple on-the-spot repairs.
- Adaptive Performance: Blitzz automatically adjusts video quality and bandwidth based on the user’s internet connection strength, ensuring reliable support even for rural customers with lower bandwidth.
- Scalability: The platform’s simple, web-based installation meant easy administration and rapid rollout across the entire customer service team.
The Results: Cost Savings and Empowered Customers
The adoption of Blitzz Concierge delivered immediate, measurable returns in both customer experience and operational efficiency, significantly impacting SaskTel’s core business goals.
🌟 Wide Customer Acceptance
- 96% of customers who used Blitzz Concierge reported they liked the service and would most likely use it again. This indicates strong customer preference for the convenience and speed of visual support.
- Customers feel “empowered” as they are able to resolve their own issues on the spot with expert guidance.
💰 Dramatic Reduction in Operating Costs
The single biggest benefit was the elimination of costly, time-consuming truck rolls, which is a major Key Performance Indicator (KPI) for the telecom.
“We’re avoiding having to dispatch technicians because we are resolving issues right on the phone. In the first fiscal year that we rolled Blitzz Concierge out, we saved 443 truck rolls.”
— Carmen Zimmerman, Business Consulting Manager at SaskTel
⏱️ Faster Issue Resolution
By addressing issues immediately upon contact, the average resolution time was lowered, reducing multiple customer call-ins and improving agent productivity.
Key Success Metrics
| Metric | Quantitative Result | Value Proposition |
| Truck Rolls Saved (Year 1) | 443 | Significant reduction in operational costs, fuel consumption, and technician dispatch time. |
| Truck Rolls Saved (Year 2, Partial) | 395 (April through August) | Demonstrates sustained, increasing usage and continued cost savings. |
| Customer Satisfaction | 96% of users liked the service and would use it again | High customer acceptance, brand loyalty, and preference for remote assistance. |
| Time to Resolution | Issues resolved “on the spot” | Dramatically improved First-Call Resolution (FCR) and reduced Average Handling Time (AHT). |
Highlight & Impact
The Truck Roll Multiplier
The elimination of 443 truck rolls in the first year alone translates directly into substantial savings for SaskTel, validating Blitzz Concierge as an indispensable cost-saving and customer-centric technology. Furthermore, the early results of the second fiscal year indicate that the annual savings are likely to surpass the first year’s total, proving the long-term, scalable value of the solution.
“That is a huge KPI for us.”
Conclusion and Future Outlook
SaskTel successfully navigated the challenges of supporting a dispersed customer base and meeting pandemic-era demands by partnering with Blitzz. The adoption of Blitzz Concierge has not only enhanced service delivery by empowering customers to solve their problems instantly but has also delivered significant, measurable returns by dramatically reducing truck rolls.
Moving forward, SaskTel plans to deepen this integration by incorporating the Blitzz tool directly into its main call platform and expanding its use to other internal departments, confirming its strategic value as a core component of SaskTel’s business transformation strategy.