Streamlining Customer Service: Fewer Systems, Better Service
Ian Ashby, senior vice president, global support, Epicor
At Epicor we are all about moving forward through technological progression. As we encounter new innovations that benefit us and enable us to better serve our customers, we integrate them into our own organization, even incorporating new companies that make us better at what we do. Just as we give our customers the ability to take control of their business processes and resources, we have found the need to make improvements to our own organization as we have grown, particularly on the customer service side. This is the way we took an unorganized and undervalued part of our company and turned it into a money-maker.
We have integrated dozens of new products into our portfolio throughout our 40+-year history, some from acquired companies and many through our own research and development. Along with these acquired technologies have come distinct customer support systems and the need to manage them. Eventually we found ourselves running 15 separate CRM-based support systems and 50+ different customer portals. This degree of complexity was far from the ideal experience for customers, many of whom had difficulty reaching the correct person to help with their specific product in a timely manner. Customer service agents in turn had difficulty providing the highest quality of service because of a lack of insight into different product support areas, making calls longer and overall delivering a poor customer experience.
The primary problem with our customer experience was the lack of a streamlined support system that could cross business barriers to give them whatever help they needed. To improve the service we could offer, we decided to create a single, unified system to support all customers and partners – regardless of the products they use or their geographic location. This would serve two purposes. First, it would help us drive down operational costs incurred by maintaining so many systems and retaining staff members with different, product-specific knowledge. Second, we believed that creating a more engaging, positive experience for customers would convince a larger number of them to renew their annual support and maintenance services with Epicor.
The Solution to Disjointed Service—EpicCare
A unified support platform was our goal – a complete overhaul of our current system that relied on the best possible technology partnership to make it happen. The challenge was to centralize our support in such a way that customers across the world could get the support they needed while also creating more actionable business insights through the information we collected. We wanted it simpler and better.
We evaluated the possibilities and selected ServiceNow to help us build our EpicCare system and deploy it throughout our global operations. In seven waves that took place over the course of just under a year, we were able to get the new system up and running throughout our global operations, for all customers & partners, and for all products.
EpicCare and Its Positive Impact on Epicor
According to Forrester and its Total Economic Impact (TIE) report, the fundamental transformation of our customer service operation has resulted in a significantly positive change in customer perception. Our Net Promoter Score, for example, jumped by 10 points in less than one year following the creation of EpicCare. The single system makes it easier for our representatives to resolve concerns about any of our products or services, or to simplify the process of getting the customer to someone who can. Because we now have wider visibility into customers’ purchase history across our product lines, we can also predict concerns and take corrective steps before a widespread problem affects more people. It’s also simpler to track our service goals and performance. And the new self-service portal gives customers the tools to help them resolve some of the most frequent concerns, any hour of any day.
These service improvements are more than simply building goodwill with our customers; they provide us with real value. Forrester estimates $6.6 million of benefit through EpicCare. And there is opportunity to open new revenue channels as well with the wealth of information available to our service representatives. They can see the history of purchases and service requests and make helpful recommendations that are important upselling opportunities. This also benefits customers, who can keep ahead of their needs.
The improvements we have made go well beyond the customer service department itself. Reporting efficiencies are expected to increase dramatically, which can drive further refinement into customer interactions and continue to drive down ongoing operational costs. And with more information to share with the C-suite, our business leaders can use real data to make and support business decisions.
The most significant lesson for Epicor was the behind-the-scenes shift in focus. Rather than concentrating our efforts solely on the development of next-generation products, the company learned that the product itself is just one means to our end goal of customer satisfaction. Service plays just as valuable a role in meeting customer needs as the technology that makes it happen. More satisfied customers means greater revenue from renewals, and an increased freedom to continue developing the next great solution for all our customers around the world.