KORE | Key Value Drivers in IoT (2024)

The Internet of Things (IoT) has great potential to enhance operations, support efficiency and sustainability, and to create powerful use cases in numerous industries, such as industrial and manufacturing, energy and utilities, healthcare, supply chain and logistics, and fleet management.

IoT has the potential to see an increased trajectory in adoption as connectivity options broaden with cellular and non-cellular networks, the advancement of 5G, cloud computing proving its longevity and ease, eSIM and other significant trends in the market.

While the technology becomes more accessible, use cases grow in size, complexity, and location, but the expectation is that for the end user, it should be a simple solution that is as close to plug-and-play as possible and with a strong ROI. These values can be determinants and influences as to how widely IoT is adopted and how successful this technology is.

What Do Customers Value in IoT?

In general, in the IoT industry customers value a variety of factors, including:

1. Security: Since IoT devices collect and transmit sensitive information, customers value strong security measures to protect their data from hackers and cyberattacks.
2. Trust & Reliability: Customers value trust and reliability in the products and services they use. They expect products/services to function reliably and consistently without errors or downtime.
3. Ease of use: Customers prefer IoT devices that are easy to install, set up, and use without requiring a lot of technical knowledge.
4. Interoperability: Customers appreciate IoT devices that are compatible with other devices and technologies, making it easy to integrate them into their existing systems.
5. Customization: Customers value the ability to customize their IoT devices to meet their specific needs and preferences.
6. Efficiency and Sustainability: Customers are increasingly concerned about energy efficiency and want IoT devices that consume less energy and have a lower environmental impact.
7. Analytics and insights: Customers want IoT devices that provide valuable insights and analytics to help them make better decisions and improve their operations.
8. Cost-effectiveness: Customers appreciate IoT devices that offer a good value for their cost, with a reasonable price point and low ongoing maintenance costs
9. Responsiveness: Customers expect account managers and support personnel to be responsive to their inquiries and issues.

IoT deployments need to work reliably and effectively and each nine of these key drivers are crucial elements in achieving that goal. Products, connectivity, and services need to be seamless and simplified, because IoT on its own can be very complex.

Responsiveness in Customer Experience and Customer Support

Customer experience and support might not be top of mind (or top of this blog’s list!) when choosing partners for deploying IoT, but that does not negate its importance.

Take for instance, a KORE use case during the 2G/3G network sunset, when organizations were migrating from legacy networks to 4G LTE, a complex process with many steps that, even though they may have all seemingly been taken correctly, issues still cropped up for a few KORE customers.

One customer had successfully migrated to 4G LTE, but the devices’ logic was forcing a 4G connection with an inaccurate APN, which resulted in the devices not being able to register to the network. The KORE Global Technical Support Team was able to roll out a firmware update that disabled the 3G and changed the programming to connect with LTE.

The swift diagnosis and resolution of this were possible due to KORE’s dedicated technical support team that is available globally 24/7.

Another customer experienced 4G LTE devices going offline and not being able to register to the network. KORE was able to diagnose the problem of the devices having 3G fallback enabled, which resulted in registration attempts being rejected or denied. This enabled the customer to work with the device manufacturer to update the firmware to disable the 3G fallback capability on the devices.

Devices going dark can cause lost profits, disgruntled customers, or halted operations and can take days to diagnose and fix without comprehensive customer success management and technical support.

KORE Customer Promise

IoT is complex and requires management. KORE customers turn to us when there are problems and questions, and we pride ourselves on being able to partner with our customers along their IoT journey.

KORE is here to help our customers in every stage of IoT – Build, Deploy, Manage, and Scale – with holistic support services that are always open because the success of your IoT solution is our success.

Want to learn more about our KORE customer experience and support promise? Reach out, we’d love to talk!