21,000 Dispatches Avoided: AR Remote Support and the Three-Tier Service Model
Cut 21,000 field dispatches in 18 months and expanded adjusted operating margin 170 basis points.
Xerox, a Large Enterprise Business Process Outsourcing company, created value through Support and Customer Success.
Xerox Holdings Corporation, with approximately $7.0 billion in annual revenue (2021) and a global installed base of millions of printers and multifunction devices, operated one of the largest field service organizations in the business services industry. The company deployed thousands of field service technicians globally to diagnose, repair, and maintain equipment at customer sites. Each dispatched service visit cost Xerox an estimated $150-300 in direct costs (technician time, travel, parts), with first-visit fix rates of approximately 70-75% — meaning 25-30% of visits required a follow-up dispatch. Total field service and support costs represented a portion of operating expenses. Meanwhile, customers increasingly expected faster resolution times, and the post-COVID environment made on-site visits operationally complex due to access restrictions and scheduling constraints.
Starting in early 2021, Xerox deployed CareAR, an augmented reality (AR) remote support platform originally developed internally and later spun out as a Xerox subsidiary, to transform its customer support model:
| Metric | Before | After (first 18 months) |
|---|---|---|
| Field service visit cost | $150–300 per dispatch | Avoided for 21,000 resolutions |
| First-visit fix rate | ~70–75% | Improved (AR-guided technician assist) |
| Site visits avoided | — | 21,000 |
| Direct cost avoidance | — | ~$3.2–6.3M |
| Adjusted operating margin | Baseline | +170 bps |
| Resolution time (remote cases) | 24–72 hour wait | <1 hour |
Xerox's CareAR deployment reveals what happens when a field service organization stops treating every problem as a dispatch opportunity. The three-tier model — self-service, remote-assist, field dispatch — routes each issue to the cheapest capable resolution channel. This sounds obvious, but it requires organizational willingness to reduce dispatches even when dispatch volume was historically a revenue or productivity metric.
The 21,000 avoided dispatches in 18 months represents service capacity Xerox chose not to bill as field visits, in exchange for faster client resolution and lower cost-to-serve. That trade works well when field service is an internal cost center (faster resolution retains the equipment maintenance contract), but becomes complicated when field service is a billable revenue line. Operators restructuring toward remote-first support need to rebuild the revenue model simultaneously — otherwise efficiency gains on cost are offset by revenue decline on the support line.
The technician-to-technician AR assist is the less-highlighted capability that often drives more value: when a junior technician at a client site can connect in real time with a senior specialist, first-visit fix rates improve without requiring the senior specialist to travel. In large field service organizations with significant headcount differences in experience levels, this capability reduces dependency on dispatch of high-cost senior resources.
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