Having to navigate through endless menus on the screen to select a driving mode, not finding a way to deactivate an awkward function (hello, Intelligent Cruise Assist), missing a physical remote control that your other car had, or wondering why it was has decided to design such an uncomfortable gear selector.
Car brands don’t always get it right when it comes to combining design and functionality, but those questions and concerns from the driver don’t usually reach the manufacturer. At least not immediately. Ford wants to solve it with a system that has just been patented: that the driver complains or suggests an improvement in real time, from the carand reach directly to the engineers and quality managers.
“A better way to connect with our customers”
This newly registered patentdeveloped by Ford engineers and quality managers and named ‘In vehicle voice feedback’allows you to transfer comments from the car’s multimedia system. And what is more important: you will go directly to the brand to detect possible design flaws in their models.
According to is included in the documentthe comments recorded by the owner will pass through a ‘communication network’ and will be stored in the cloud, either as a voice note or as a text transcription. There, through algorithms will be classified and organized for engineers to review.
Additionally, the moment the driver registers their complaint, the system takes a snapshot of the car’s data, which can help more quickly identify a possible problem or defect.
Source: Ford ‘In vehicle voice feedback’ patent.
In reality, this system is not new: Ford has already included something very similar in models such as the Ford Mustang Mach-E or the F-150 Lightning electric pick-up. A feature to “find better ways to connect with our customers,” points out in this interview Jason Griffin, power unit quality supervisor at Ford. He is one of the fathers of this advanced feedback system.
It does just that: the driver can record a 45-second recording complaining about something or making a suggestion, while taking a “snapshot” of the car’s data at that precise moment. But now Ford has chosen to patent it, it is understood that with the idea of including it and standardizing it. Or at least pave the way for that possibility.
Improve your cars and get healthy. “Before we had data from surveys, carried out by email or physically, which were carried out months or even years after having the car. But we did not have the possibility of having this data from the connected vehicle. It really allows us to identify problems and find solutions much faster than before,” explains Griffin.
Thus, the objective of this system is to help engineers to better understand the problems customers encounter in daily use of the car. And, above all, change or improve them preventively.
Although not only in the long term or for future updates or releases, it would also be useful to identify quality problems or failures in the cars themselves. And that Ford resolves them before they lead to a recall or an investigation by security agencies, such as the NHTSA in the US.
The documents also reflect that these customer comments could also be directed to optimize communication with dealers and improve the work of salespeople when it comes to informing or teaching how to handle a specific function. Or even to issue reservations for technical service, directly and with detailed information about a problem.
However, the feedback that customers receive should also be essential. For example, the patent shows a response via email, in which the driver is told that perhaps the seller “has not shown him how to activate the functions of his new car.” And they refer you to a kind of virtual guide, which can be as uncomfortable as having a bot solve your problems.
In any case, it is still interesting that we can complain directly to the brand just when we are experiencing a particularly uncomfortable and unintuitive function. Or just the opposite: how much we like making a system or designing a controller so that it doesn’t end up disappearing.
Source: www.motorpasion.com
