AI – the questions installers are asking
By David Thornton, chair, The Window Company (Contracts)
As a multi-million pound commercial installer, with a raft of awards and accreditations under our belt, including the glass and glazing industry’s 2025 Customer Care Award. The Window Company (Contracts) is very much a forward thinking, customer focused operation.
We’ve always been ahead of the curve when it comes to deploying the latest tech advancements within our business. For instance, we have our own bespoke interactive property database with more than 58,000 records, we designed our own installation app to replace paper job sheets for surveyors and fitters, and we have caller ID in place linked to the database so we can instantly call up the details of every resident who phones in and give them any information they need.
For us – and I’m sure for many other installers – the next area where we’re looking to invest is AI. We want to stay ahead of the curve, but, when it comes to AI, do any of us actually know what the radius of that curve is going to look like?
We’re already exploring several interesting applications for AI tools within our business, which go beyond just generating digital content for our website and socials or minuting our meetings. But at the same time, we’re extremely conscious of the lack of trust around AI amongst some consumers about data security, ethics, job impacts and potential for misuse. Will that level of trust increase or decrease going forward?
We are determined that won’t do anything which undermines – or is even perceived to undermine – the personal customer service which we know our clients and residents really value. Is there a risk of that with AI? After several big news scandals, are we already seeing the beginnings of a backlash against it?
As I see it, our biggest challenge is to identify ways to use AI effectively so that it enhances our efficiency, but in a way that is received positively by both our customers and our staff. That might be something simple like automating the dozens of calls we make every week to residents to confirm that they are expecting our fitting teams the next day, and then automatically notifying our admin team if any changes are needed so that they can step in and make a personal call.
However, if I think it’s essential that we give clear disclosure of our use of AI to customers – and how do we navigate that?
We are absolutely determined to embrace AI and maximise the benefits to our business, but I think it would be naïve to rush headlong into implementation until we have answered all these questions. I would be interested to hear from other installers about their experiences, and the response they have had from customers.