Johannesburg, 01 Sep 2015
Word of mouth carries enormous weight when it comes to the reputation of your business products and services. Thanks to social media, the voice of the customer is louder than ever, making excellent customer service a critical success factor for any business.
That's why Bytes Document Solutions (BDS), the largest Xerox distributor in the world, has partnered with service life cycle management and mobile workforce solutions company Astea International. The move is set to drive higher levels of BDS customer satisfaction with faster response times and proactive communication, the goal being to create consistent and highly personalised experiences at every customer relationship touch point.
"It's important to invest in improving customer service and effective tools to help you stay on top of managing your customer experience," says Anton van den Berg, Bytes Document Solutions divisional director of services. "This will ensure that your customers are getting good service from your staff, all of the time. In addition, with some areas of office automation technology becoming commoditised, BDS distinguishes itself in the market through service excellence, hence the investment in Astea."
Van den Berg says BDS embarked on a service modernisation programme in 2014, with the aim of driving services excellence throughout the organisation. Improving customer satisfaction - and profitability - has been enabled through better performance management, optimisation of technical services, and a strong focus on cost and logistics management.
"There are several companies in the market that claim to be able to deliver a managed print service (MPS), yet the scope and definition of this varies greatly between competitors," says Van den Berg. "BDS is one of few that can rightfully claim the capability to deliver a full MPS solution nationally, and of those few, we are clearly the leader in delivering this service."
A key element of the service modernisation programme was the implementation of an Astea field service solution that enables technicians to receive and clear service calls via their mobile phones. The automated solution has streamlined and improved the management of field service activities.
"By automating workflow, our field service technicians are able to efficiently complete and document assignments, manage vehicle assets, capture expenses and generate revenue through add-on sales during their contact with a customer," says Van den Berg. "The new solution ensures that we deliver on minimum response times and that we can co-ordinate the skills we have with the tasks required, as well as scheduling and dispatch, and also better manage repair parts logistics, all of which leads to more satisfied clients."
The customer wins, says Van den Berg, not just through better customer experience, but by achieving better up-time of equipment, more efficient use of their IT resources, and better use of employees' time as they do not have to waste hours trying to fix issues.
Astea's remote technician portal allows site-based field engineers and other off-site agents secure access to the core system. Mobile tools enable technicians to work electronically for receiving, documenting and reporting assignments, and help to eliminate time-consuming and error prone manual procedures, service delays and paper reporting.
"In addition to enhancing our service to Xerox customers, we are also seeing a positive impact on BDS's profitability as a result of greatly enhanced productivity on the part of our technicians," says Van den Berg. "Positive change is being felt throughout the organisation, with people buying in to better ways of doing things. We're all excited about the future of the company."
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