Fordway.
How Connect is helping Fordway enhance its customer experience with_ServiceNow.
Managed services provider Fordway wanted to introduce a more transparent and streamlined way of managing their customers service and support requirements . Connect deployed ServiceNow CSM, giving end customers more visibility through a flexible portal but also optimising resourcing and reporting for Fordway. The implementation has proved highly successful, with Fordway’s clients rapidly embracing the new platform while its own team are saving time and improving digital workflows. The result is a better customer experience that fits with Fordway’s ethos and reputation.
The business need.
Fordway provides fully managed cloud services such as Microsoft Azure and Microsoft 365 to mid-size companies and public sector organisations across the UK. Its customer service team therefore fields a high volume of service and support activities every day, from moves and changes to system issues and information requests.
The team had recognised that the way it managed such enquiries was becoming out of step with customer expectations, as more and more such services are delivered through online portals, where customers can view live status updates. At the same time, the complexity of its service request tracking was proving a drain on Service Delivery managers, who were spending a substantial amount of their time compiling reports to assess whether the bespoke service level agreements (SLAs) had been met.
Fordway had examined a range of contact centre solutions to enhance its customer service management and its experts had identified ServiceNow as the right choice for its situation. As Fordway Operations Manager Johanna King explains, “ServiceNow is flexible and has workflows we can configure.”
However, at the time, Johanna’s team had no prior experience deploying ServiceNow and – due to their existing workload at the time – their dedicated team needed additional resource to deliver the full implementation. Fordway therefore wanted a partner that could provide the right skills and crucially offer knowledge transfer to the in-house team, so they could take over configuration in the future – which they have now successfully accomplished.
The solution.
Connect worked alongside Fordway to pinpoint the right features from the ServiceNow portfolio and co-create a phased implementation plan. A key element of that was staff training, at every level from frontline service representatives to managers to system administrators – all of which Connect delivered.
But Fordway also recognised there was an opportunity to use the deployment as a catalyst for change within the customer experience. “We didn’t want to just lift and shift our processes, ” Johanna says, “but instead see where we could improve things and optimise workflows. Connect’s experience with other customers really helped; they gave us advice and practical recommendations.”
Key configuration elements included the customer portal and an employee time tracking capability. “With a tech team working remotely, including sometimes on customer sites, it was hard to know how much time people were spending on different tasks,” recalls Johanna. “ServiceNow’s time tracking gives us that information, which we can use to ensure clients are billed accurately, but also provides insight that we can learn from to streamline processes further.”
The outcome.
The ServiceNow solution has transformed the way customers engage with Fordway around support and service requirements.
“Uptake of the portal actually surpassed our expectations,” Johanna confirms. “They really welcome being able to see the status of an issue and – where appropriate – accept our proposed resolution.”
At the same time, inbound email volumes have reduced significantly, with the added benefit that, instead of Fordway having to raise a ticket from an email and potentially contacting the client to gather essential details, it’s now an automated process.
“Connect helped us document the processes accurately and comprehensively, so we can provide customers with a detailed guide, setting out the information they need to give to raise a ticket.” That’s meant that the right information is gathered at the first opportunity, freeing up frontline advisors’ time and improving the customer experience.
An even bigger time saving has come through the automated reporting built into ServiceNow. Instead of Service Delivery managers having to calculate performance against SLAs each month, the solution tracks it on an ongoing basis – more transparent for the customer and Fordway.
“We can also identify more quickly where the customer has raised a non-standard request which may be chargeable, and get immediate approval to go ahead with the work,” Johanna adds. That all ensures accurate and timely billing, another important factor in maintaining Fordway’s commitment to excellent service.
Even though the ServiceNow solution is up and running – and Fordway was able to complete an upgrade on its own, and is in the process of another “because of the support and effective guidance Connect provided during the first upgrade undertaken ” – the company still draws on Connect’s expertise and input.
“an example of this was during a meeting when we were discussing improvements to onboarding new customers,” Johanna says. “The Connect team were on site for a different issue, but showed us quickly how we could pull information from Azure Active Directory into ServiceNow with minimal effort. That proactive approach helps us continue to offer the best service to our customers.”
- Highly popular customer portal allows live status tracking
- Radically reduced inbound email volumes
- Instant SLA reporting frees up Service Delivery Managers
- Time tracking provides rich insight into resolution time across the dispersed service team
- Improvements to processes and digital workflows
About Connect.
Connect are the independent communications experts who can transform how your organisation communicates – both internally and externally. We deliver solutions and services that join up your employee and customer communications across platforms, across sites and across countries, in three core areas: Contact Centre Solutions, Unified Communications and Network Services. We provide simple, elegant solutions to the most complex problems.
About Fordway.
Founded in 1991, Fordway has been a leading IT managed services provider delivering outstanding IT services to the public sector and mid-sized UK enterprises for over 30 years. It is a Microsoft Gold partner for Cloud Productivity, Cloud Platform and Datacentre and now a Solutions Partner for Infrastructure, which ‘demonstrates our broad capability to help customers accelerate migration of key infrastructure workloads to Azure’
all of Fordway’s services are available to the public sector through the G-Cloud Framework on the Gov.uk Digital Marketplace and their website: www.fordway.com
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