Porsche Cars North America delivers world-class service with Microsoft mixed reality and HoloLens 2

Delivering on a promise of exceptional service

When someone purchases a vehicle from a Porsche dealer, it can be more than just a transportation decision—it’s often the fulfillment of a long-time ambition. “As a brand, we say we are driven by dreams, and we believe the same is true of our customers,” says Kjell Gruner, President and Chief Executive Officer at Porsche Cars North America (PCNA). “Together with our dealer partners, our mission is to make those dreams come true.”

Paul Jarrett, General Manager at Gaudin Porsche of Las Vegas, echoes that sentiment. “A Porsche is something a customer may have aspired to their whole life,” he says. “For some people, it’s practically a member of the family. At Porsche dealerships and service centers, we’re focused on ensuring they get the most fantastic customer experience every time they interact with us and that means having the right tools and support to make the process as efficient and effective as possible.”

Delivering that consistently fantastic experience includes making sure that when a car comes in for service, it gets fixed right the first time as quickly as possible. “The entire industry is moving toward more electric vehicles, so our technicians need to be experts in a wide range of engine types and Porsche models—it’s an extremely complex business,” says Gruner. “We want to provide our technicians with the leading-edge technology they need to stay on top of the latest developments and get expert help when necessary so they can deliver on our service promises.” 

Looking at cars from the inside out and all around

One way that PCNA uses leading-edge technology to support its technicians has been through remote assistance, where technicians can receive help from experts at another location when they find a particularly difficult troubleshooting task. After initially deploying a 2D virtual reality solution, PCNA sought a better option.

When it came time to replace that technology, Renita Whitfield worked with her IT counterpart and the workplace performance improvement experts at Microsoft Cloud Partner Program member CraneMorley to pilot two mixed reality devices with select dealer partners, and there was one clear champion.

“When we finished our pilot, Microsoft HoloLens 2 was our choice,” says Whitfield, High-Voltage Battery Program Manager and Tech Live Look Program Manager at Porsche Cars North America. “We really pushed for it to become the new corporate standard, because it was way ahead of the competition in terms of comfort, ease of use, and functionality, and we could see a variety of possible use cases that would increase our return on investment.”

Thomas Pratt, President of CraneMorley, remembers the enthusiastic response from the PCNA dealer partners who tested HoloLens 2. “Technicians quickly figured out that this was going to help them do their jobs better and make their customers happier,” he says. “And management knows that having satisfied customers means more repeat business. So, this solution is a win for everyone.”

The new system is also a winner when it comes to education. “HoloLens 2 provides an exponential increase in knowledge transfer compared to text or picture documentation,” says Randy Burnsworth, Manager, Aftersales Technical Training at Porsche Cars North America. “With the 3D interface, you can see a vehicle in the correct location and spatial orientation, and you can pull away or hide the parts you don’t need to see and tear down a virtual model of a car in a fraction of the time it would take with a real one.”

With HoloLens 2 and Microsoft Dynamics 365 Guides, technicians now view the world around them and the car they’re working on in full 3D while connected to a remote expert who can use in-device tools such as video chat, pointers, annotation, and document sharing to help solve stubborn repair issues. Dynamics 365 Guides includes all the core Remote Assist capabilities, so users can now access Teams and call a remote expert or join a call without ever leaving Guides.

“Moving to HoloLens 2 with mixed reality has been a massive jump in capabilities and user experience, and it’s led to an exceptional increase in efficiency for us,” says Jarrett.

The company is very excited about the possibilities Dynamics 365 Guides presents for remote training. Aided by the deep expertise of CraneMorley, PCNA is developing a library of classes that technicians can take on-site at their dealership, rather than having to travel to a remote training center multiple times a year.

“Our technicians may go to training for weeks at a time—which means we lose them from the dealership for that period, and they’re away from their lives and families,” says Jarrett. “Being able to do training in-house with HoloLens 2 means a better quality of life for technicians and a significant cost savings for us. When you multiply that savings across a network of almost 200 dealer partners, it’s a substantial figure.”

Porsche dealer technicians are eager to dig into the Dynamics 365 Guides coursework, which will not only save on travel time and lost work, but which will be available at any time for students to refresh their knowledge or brush up on a key process at their own pace in the immersive and user-friendly HoloLens 2 environment.

“Being able to do training on the fly is a tremendous benefit for us,” says Dane Husted, Shop Foreman at Gaudin Porsche of Las Vegas. “If you’re going to be pulling an engine out of a car the next day, you can go through the whole process virtually ahead of time and understand how everything fits together. Nothing beats what HoloLens 2 is bringing to the table right now.”

Surveying the real-world benefits of mixed reality

The combination of HoloLens 2 and Dynamics 365 Mixed Reality Apps is driving direct benefits for PCNA and its customers by helping ensure that technicians get repairs done correctly and quickly and on the customer’s first visit. Vehicle owners definitely appreciate this.

“We had one customer bring his vehicle in for a particularly complex system update and we ran into a problem and had to restart,” explains Jarrett. “That could normally take up to a few days—but thanks to a 20-minute Dynamics 365 Remote Assist session, the entire process was done in a few hours. The customer then spent an hour in my office telling me how happy he was with my team!”

PCNA has sent HoloLens 2 devices to all of its nearly 200 dealerships and anticipates that this will push the increase in customer satisfaction even further by giving its technicians access to a robust learning system that helps them understand the increasingly complex workings of Porsche vehicles. This has the double benefit of getting customers’ cars back quickly and giving technicians the satisfaction of working for a company that cares about their skills development and professional advancement. In an industry where technicians are in scarce supply, this is an important recruiting tool.

“When we bring in prospective new technicians and show them HoloLens 2 with Remote Assist and Guides for the first time, it’s a real ‘wow’ moment for them,” says Jarrett. “After five minutes, they’re asking where this technology has been for their whole career. It makes them even more excited to join our team.”

That excitement for mixed reality is shared to the highest levels of PCNA. “There are a lot of factual and material advantages to HoloLens 2 and Microsoft mixed reality, but I also want to emphasize the emotional side of it,” says Gruner. “They are really cool technologies that inspire everyone who interacts with them. Porsche is an emotional brand, and technology like this brings our technicians’ learning experience to a new and exciting emotional level that is right in line with our brand image.”

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