First-class customer service throughout the entire lifecycle
“The customer at the center” is the core of redIT's digitalization strategy and that's why we focused on the entire customer life cycle from the start. After the maturity analysis, it quickly became clear that the customer service system used (support tickets, service management…) no longer met our requirements. The main reasons for this were:
- the service processes were not consistently supported
- Communication with customers was not personalized enough
- the system was complex and therefore prone to errors
- there was a lack of a holistic view of customer interactions
- there were no meaningful analytics and dashboards
redIT decided on this two years ago Dynamics 365 & Power Platform as a strategic business application platform and that's why we started introducing D2021 Customer Service in January 365. This was preceded by several cross-team requirements workshops in which the functionality of the new customer service system was developed. It was important that we didn't limit ourselves to the core system (ticketing) right from the start, but rather focused end-to-end on the entire customer service process, including on-site service operations. The customer master data was already stored in the D365 system, so we could concentrate on the service processes and communication/interaction with the customer, as all D365 applications access the same database (= Dataverse). This is an advantage that should not be underestimated and has accelerated implementation enormously. By using Power Automate (= cloud-based workflow services and low-code development), the redIT-specific service processes could be easily replicated, so that we had set up a first prototype just three weeks after the start of implementation. This meant that the core team was able to work through the processes on the specific system and we were able to apply agile project management with weekly sprints. The experience with the sprints was very good and enabled us to continuously manage and measure progress. After 8 weeks we were able to start testing the new ticketing system and go live after another 3 weeks.
Below are the 5 most important advantages of the new solution – customer service:
1. 360 degree customer view
With the new system, all employees have access to all available customer data. For example, every salesperson has an overview of all customer inquiries in the respective customer context and can help process inquiries more quickly. All applications are cloud-based and optimized for mobile use. This means that every employee can work regardless of time and location. The classic “data silos” are thus avoided.
2. Integration with Outlook, Teams
The seamless integration into Outlook / Teams optimally supports collaboration between service employees and customers. Every communication and interaction is recorded in a timeline and can be tracked by everyone involved. Employees can also access D365 directly from Teams and can therefore use all collaboration options in the project team without restrictions.
3. SLA management
D365 Customer Service offers extensive options for mapping and managing even complex service level agreements (SLA). Thanks to the close connection to the current service contracts, every employee has an overview of the services provided to the customer. By simply adapting the underlying processes with Power Automate, an individual trigger and time management system can be created.
4. Converting requests into work orders
Inquiries can easily be converted manually or automatically into work orders for the service employees. The D365 Field Service application offers a number of functions that comprehensively support the management of work orders. The various work steps are again recorded in a timeline so that all employees and customers are informed about all activities at all times.
5. Comprehensive analytics and dashboards
D365 Customer Service not only offers work and process dashboards, but also makes it possible to make comprehensive analyzes about the various requests. This helps the service team to recognize query patterns and act proactively, for example by expanding the knowledge database with relevant articles or informing customers in advance about specific problems.
The experiences with the new customer service system based on D365 Customer Service are very good. We were able to shorten the processing times for service requests by 10% and the new system helps us to continually expand our customer service offering.
Are you looking to modernize your customer service system? We would be happy to support you. Contact us.