Case Study
Zendesk to Salesforce Service Cloud Migration at Thinkproject
Headquarters: Munich, Bavaria, and 15 offices in 11 countries
Industry: High-tech, Software development for the construction and built asset industry
Employees: 650+
Challenges
Siloed Data
Working with two different platforms resulted in a dispersed approach to customer support and a lack of cohesive customer data view. The support data was stored in one system and the transaction history in another. This meant that an agent would need to jump back and forth between systems to get a full understanding of the customer situation.
Dispersed Reporting
Siloed data also means dispersed reporting handled in two different ways. Lack of common data model and unmatching data structure influences how data is presented and therefore requires additional time and effort to align it into one single view of a customer lifecycle, thus impacts informed decision-making.
Lack of System Flexibility
The existing support system used numerous small, simple automations, which executed independently. This and lack of an advanced omnichannel support causing a process hard to control and maintaining in a longer run. Also, the way data was structured did not allow presenting customer information in a CRM like manner.
Redundant Costs
A need to have two systems containing fragments of customer data means paying for redundant licences, but also more time a support agent needs to spend in order to find all the necessary information, which impacts ticket resolution time.
Solution
As a result of a six-month project, Service Cloud was successfully integrated into Thinkproject’s existing Sales Cloud solution, consolidating CRM data into a single platform. This integration unified all data, enabling the creation of a comprehensive 360-degree customer view while promoting consistent data presentation and validation.
These improvements, along with processes leveraging advanced automation and routing capabilities, have streamlined operations and significantly enhanced overall efficiency.
Solution
Case Routing
Salesforce case routing is the core of the new solution. It assigns cases to specific support agents based on case source, agent skills, product type, language, and geographical location, ensuring that each case receives the appropriate expertise for resolution.
At Thinkproject, the system was implemented to handle cases originating from 11 countries, spanning 3 time zones, and in 6 languages, assigning them to one of 150 agents. This system ensures that cases are directed to the right team members at the right time, based on their specific qualifications.
Customer Portal
The customer portal is a key feature of the new solution, providing customers with a centralized platform to log in, open new cases, check case statuses, and collaborate directly with Thinkproject support. This portal enhances the customer experience by offering transparency and streamlining communication.
A standout feature of the portal is the super-user capability, which allows support agents to promote selected customer users to super-user status. Super-users can resolve cases originating from their own company, effectively acting as a first line of support. This approach not only empowers customers but also serves as a case deflection tactic, reducing the workload on support teams while ensuring faster resolutions for common issues.
Knowledge Base
We have set up a knowledge base with support articles. Customer users can easily access these articles and receive suggestions for case-matched content, which enhances support efficiency.
The system facilitates searching by subjects and keywords, enabling swift identification of relevant information. Agents can add parts of articles to emails, which makes communication easier and gives customers quick access to helpful information.
Omnichannel Communication
The new Service Cloud implementation integrates phone, email, customer portal, cases from third-party systems via API, and a CTI solution, enabling engagement through preferred communication methods while preserving context.
By leveraging a CTI provider for call management, the system offers the ability to build simple IVR flows and route calls to targeted queues. Now, all interactions are seamlessly tracked and easily accessible within Salesforce CRM, resulting in a more cohesive and unified experience across channels.
Improved Communication and Collaboration Across Teams and Customers
The integrations with Jira, Azure DevOps, and Aha! have enhanced communication between sales, support agents, and third-line support teams. These integrations facilitate seamless data exchange, enabling agents to track progress and manage tasks efficiently. Additionally, Salesforce Chatter fosters better information sharing between agents, ensuring smooth collaboration.
For customers, the customer portal enables direct communication with support, improving the exchange of information and providing a more seamless service experience.
System Integrations
Salesforce integration with Jira, Azure DevOps, Aha!, and MadCap has significantly enhanced support efficiency. These integrations facilitate seamless data flow between Salesforce and third-line support systems, enabling teams to track progress, manage tasks, and maintain alignment across platforms. This improves support agents’ visibility into cases requiring development or developer support and ensures quick access to relevant knowledge for faster resolutions.
In addition, the MadCap integration optimizes the management of Knowledge Base articles, consolidating them in one place and seamlessly transferring them to Salesforce.
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Outcomes
Operational Efficiency
The migration to Service Cloud has significantly improved operational efficiency by reducing licensing costs. By consolidating systems, the company eliminated redundant licenses and the need to support multiple solutions. This streamlined approach also reduced the complexity of operations, as it now requires fewer skills to manage one integrated system rather than two separate ones. Additionally, this migration ensures that data is no longer duplicated across systems, providing a single, golden record and enhancing data accuracy and consistency.
Unified Customer View and Enhanced Reporting
The integration of Service Cloud and Sales Cloud on the Salesforce platform provides a comprehensive customer view by uniting data from both clouds. This unified approach enables teams to access complete customer profiles and interactions, while also supporting high-quality reporting. With all data in one system, teams gain real-time insights into customer habits and preferences, leading to better segmentation and more personalized marketing strategies, ultimately enhancing overall business performance.
Improved Communication and Collaboration Across Teams and Customers
The integrations with Jira, Azure DevOps, and Aha! have enhanced communication between sales, support agents, and third-line support teams. These integrations facilitate seamless data exchange, enabling agents to track progress and manage tasks efficiently. Additionally, Salesforce Chatter fosters better information sharing between agents, ensuring smooth collaboration.
For customers, the customer portal enables direct communication with support, improving the exchange of information and providing a more seamless service experience.
Enhanced Case Routing and Case-Deflection Strategies
The migration from Zendesk to Salesforce enhanced the customer’s case routing capabilities. Salesforce’s advanced features enable cases to be efficiently routed to the appropriate agents based on their skills, improving agent performance. Additionally, empowering customers to find solutions independently helps minimize the creation of support cases, playing a key role in case-deflection strategies. Solutions like knowledge bases and AI-powered chatbots guide customers to resolve issues without needing to contact support.The migration from Zendesk to Salesforce enhanced the customer’s case routing capabilities. Salesforce’s advanced features enable cases to be efficiently routed to the appropriate agents based on their skills, improving agent performance. Additionally, empowering customers to find solutions independently helps minimize the creation of support cases, playing a key role in case-deflection strategies. Solutions like knowledge bases and AI-powered chatbots guide customers to resolve issues without needing to contact support.
Your company may benefit from this solution if
01
You would like an audit and health check of your existing org to see if you are up-to-date with all the newest security and implementation standards.
02
You want to get access to skilled individuals, but you don’t want to spend time and money to look for them on your own.
03
You have an existing Salesforce org and you are looking for a trustworthy team to support your day-to-day Salesforce operations and become almost your internal IT.
04
You need someone to have a look at your data and support you with data fixes, data clean-ups, data uploads, and migrations.
05
You need to improve, fix or extend your current integrations.
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Successful Salesforce projects begin with thorough analysis and detailed design.
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What Thinkproject says about us
Think Beyond are a dependable partner whose principles rely on constant communication and collaboration. They will be there for you throughout the project, even if unforeseen issues or complications arise.
The size and scope of our project continues to change but this is met as a challenge, with the right amount of critical thinking and questioning, rather than a problem.
Think Beyond look at our implementation in a holistic manner, rather than just rolling out single functionalities, they understand the whole system and how it’s interlocking parts and dependencies need to be approached.
Besides that, all the team are friendly and fun to work with, which goes a long way.
Adam Finch-Turner
Director Support Services at Thinkproject
