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Annata Streamlines Service to External & Internal Customers Using Vivantio’s Self-Service Capabilities

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INTRODUCTION


Read how Vivantio supports and enhances Annata’s external customer service experience through self-service and ITIL principles.

 

THE CUSTOMER


Annata Ltd. | annata.net

 

PROFILE:

Industry | Software for Automotive and Equipment

Annata is a Microsoft Global Independent Software Vendor with 15 years’ experience and focus on delivering end-to-end information technology solutions for Automotive and Equipment industries to help organizations meet current business challenges and take advantage of new opportunities in the market.

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GLOBAL CUSTOMERS USING THE DYNAMICS PLATFORM

GLOBAL OFFICES

EMPLOYEES

 

The Need


Five years ago, Becky Middleton, UK Customer Operations & Support Desk Manager at Annata Ltd., began the search for a service management platform that would not only help her team provide excellent customer service for external B2B customers, but also grow with the company to meet future business needs.

To accomplish this, Becky’s team needed to shift from a purely email-to-ticket platform configuration—still used heavily for internal customers—to a service management solution with comprehensive out-of-the-box self-service capabilities that would support an easy and painless transition. In addition, her team needed multiple ticket types to serve a multitude of partners and external customers, as well as have the ability to track service level agreements.

Becky’s customers were always top of mind: both in serving them and in providing a seamless customer experience.

“Originally, we were looking to serve external customers,” Becky explained. “We wanted them to be able to log tickets and track them to provide the best service possible. At the time, we used mainly email-to-ticket, but rather than the system forcing a priority level, we wanted the customer to be able to select the priority level and for all key information to be pre-determined and established upfront.”

 

The Solution


Enter Vivantio, where Becky was excited to learn that she could fully customize each ticket area to meet her requirements, including the use of custom forms and fields to capture extended information and track third-party logged ticket data. But the biggest functionality that won her over? Vivantio’s self-service capabilities.

“You can set up multiple portals for each customer so they can see their own company logos and details that are unique to them.” Becky said.

After implementation, Annata created user-friendly self-service portals for each group of external customers. To ensure a personalized user experience, the portals were branded with company logos and colors and offered customer-specific functions and features.

Before long, Annata was making thorough use of self-service portals. After learning how extensively Becky’s team was using self-service, Vivantio’s support team helped Annata set up one primary portal for all incoming requests, making it far easier to oversee, maintain and update when necessary.

“Vivantio offered demos and provided expertise that allowed our service team to customize, digitally brand and enhance the portal,” Becky said of the process.

Doing this encouraged Becky to take an even closer look at Vivantio’s capabilities and ITIL-functionality.

Because her internal technical teams were not receiving enough specific information from internal ticket submissions for them to be successfully actioned, Becky’s team implemented additional ticket types and custom forms and fields that were category-driven. This ensured critical information was included from the start so the ticket could be sent to the right technician for faster resolution.

“We found the information we received from internal customer emails never provided enough information to complete the job,” Becky said.

“We decided a better way to provide service is to drive customers through a portal so that, based on the ticket type and category they select when logging a ticket, we can create drop-down questions the customer must answer to log the ticket. Why not ask for that information upfront to improve the service process?”

Becky has also found features like workflows and roles and permissions incredibly helpful in automating and improving processes, saving her teams time, as well as empowering them to provide better and more efficient service.

“We want all of our customers to come into one place to submit a request, then route the ticket to the right team to complete,” said Becky. “Once submitted, we can control, based upon the role, the types of data and information someone can see.”

 

WHAT’S NEXT

Although Annata began using Vivantio to serve external customers, the company has since implemented the platform for internal customer use. Annata is a global company with multiple IT departments around the world, so automation, asset management and ticket routing are even more crucial. The IT teams support in-house departments by completing standard software and hardware ticket requests, but they also support customers by providing coding and systems expertise.

Self-service isn’t the only way Annata has leveled up its customer service and measures success. Becky’s team uses Vivantio’s reporting features, SLAs, incident and change management, and escalation to monitor tickets and resolve requests. “We service many and various types of customers throughout the company and externally. We heavily use articles, fixed assets and multiple ticket types so we can provide service,” Becky said.

Looking forward, Annata plans to utilize even more integrations that Vivantio offers, as well as dive into online customer forums to learn how other Vivantio customers make the most of the platform. Becky expects that many people across the support, technical and development teams, as well as consultants and partners that rely on self-service portals, will adopt and use Vivantio not just for its best-in-class capabilities, but also because of the guidance and service they receive from Vivantio’s in-house support and professional services teams.

“Vivantio works well. The support team is helpful and comes up with different ways of doing things when you need something, especially with any type of customization. If we have any questions, Vivantio is very responsive, and it’s how we know we made the right decision.”

 

 

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