Client
Our client is an Australian retailer with a vast network of over a thousand stores across Australia and New Zealand. They serve millions of customers weekly, providing a wide range of products and services.
Challenge
The client recognized that their primary focus was on store operations rather than delivering an exceptional customer experience, which they wanted to change. In spite of the presence of an IT service desk in retail stores, several challenges prevented the client from achieving a desired level of customer experience. The client aimed to optimize operational costs, maintain quality, and ensure compliance with safety measures. The existing challenges included:
- The support app was the only connection between the store and the support desk, but it had limited functionality and features.
- Requests from store members were managed through a CRM system, which assigned tasks based on a list of available technicians and the urgency of each request. Technician response was crucial for closure, resulting in a dependency.
- Inefficiencies in the CRM and a malfunctioning technician app led to delays in work order closures. Timely inputs from technicians failed to flow seamlessly, thereby hindering decision-making at the support center and the subsequent response to the store.
- Outdated systems incurred high maintenance costs without delivering the expected results.
- Process gaps and poor end-to-end visibility resulted in delayed responses.
- The support center created work orders based on store complaints and sent them to technicians for repairs. However, delayed updates in the CRM caused mismatched problem descriptions and labor cost variations, leading to inconvenient delays for the store.
The client faced challenges due to a misdirected focus on store operations and inefficient processes, which hindered their ability to deliver improved customer service in retail.
Solution
Approach:
Hexaware’s approach aimed to enhance the client’s operations with a proactive, customer-centric strategy. The envisioned future state included:
- Technology upgrades for optimized operations
- Testing and process improvements
- An app for efficient field service management
- Diagnostic tools for preventive management
- Alarm-triggered work order creation
Implementation:
Hexaware took end-to-end ownership of the facilities management operations by consolidating offshore and onsite delivery, supporting the client’s transformation journey towards proactive maintenance. We implemented several crucial solutions to meet the client’s business objectives:
- Chatbot deployment: We deployed a chatbot to allow stores to raise requests, capturing all relevant details for a work order with minimal dependency on the store, thus reducing calls for incomplete requests.
- Close looping: We enabled both stores and technicians to provide feedback on the actual maintenance experience, ensuring continuous improvement.
- Proactive maintenance: We facilitated asset tagging and mapping testing to enable consistent high performance of client assets, effective monitoring, and a 360-degree feedback mechanism for an enhanced shopping experience.
- Asset dashboard: We developed a comprehensive asset dashboard for predictive and prescriptive analytics, offering a complete view of assets under repair, frequently repaired or replaced assets, location-wise/vendor-wise assets, and work orders that have exceeded the system’s threshold for closure.
- Audit framework: We created a detailed audit framework for job upgrades, identifying valid upgrades and revenue leakages within certain asset categories.
- Quality measures: We implemented quality measures to prevent financial loss by monitoring asset performance and ensuring efficient facility management.
- Circle-back feedback technique: We implemented a circle-back feedback technique in which the store, the technician, and the support center verified and expressed satisfaction with the provided resolution, ensuring effectiveness and customer satisfaction.
- Seamless transition: We ensured a seamless transition from their incumbent vendor with minimal service disruptions. This was accomplished swiftly through a mix of rebadging high achievers and new hires, with training and onboarding completed within 15 days of project kick-off.
Hexaware implemented a comprehensive set of proactive, technology-driven solutions to optimize the client’s operations, enhance maintenance processes, and improve customer experience.
Benefits
Hexaware’s efficient facilities management helped the client to improve its engagement with its customers by ensuring asset availability, increasing the proportion of planned work over reactive work, improving technician effectiveness, and maximizing the asset lifecycle. The results included:
- 21% reduction in total cost of operations (TCO)
- Over 85% increase in bot interactions within the first week of going live
- 52% increase in average daily chat interactions
- Only 11% of chat support interactions required manual agent intervention, a significant improvement from the previous 100%
- Chatbot delivered an average of nearly 18 hours/day of time savings for the store
Hexaware’s solutions significantly reduced costs, improved customer interaction and operational efficiency, and provided the client with a sustainable platform for competitive differentiation.
Summary
An Australian retailer faced challenges in improving its customer service experience due to its focus on store operations and inefficient IT service desk support. Hexaware implemented a proactive, customer-centric strategy that included technology upgrades, process improvements, and a new field service management app. Key solutions included deploying a chatbot to streamline requests, enabling feedback loops for continuous improvement, facilitating proactive maintenance through asset tagging, developing a comprehensive asset dashboard, creating an audit framework for job upgrades, implementing quality measures, and ensuring a seamless vendor transition. As a result, the client significantly reduced costs, improved daily chat engagement, and achieved substantial time savings with minimal manual intervention for chat support. This comprehensive approach optimized operations and provided a sustainable platform for competitive differentiation.
