Driving seamless experiences for customers and employees
NEC New Zealand is part of the global NEC Group, and specialises in a range of services, including biometric authentication, cyber and network security, smart transportation solutions and microwave technology.
With a presence for more than 30 years in the country, NEC New Zealand focuses on working with governments, law enforcement agencies and telecommunication companies to deliver a safer and more connected community for all.
As a leading solution and service provider for ICT, telecommunications and biometrics, NEC’s field service teams support a wide range of projects, such as facial recognition technology for New Zealand Police and working with Christchurch Council to deliver the Smart City Transport initiative for the community. To ensure that the business can continue to deliver reliable and quality services, NEC New Zealand wanted to transform the field service experience for both customers and employees.
“ServiceNow connects people, processes and systems across sales and field services teams. This empowers us to drive service excellence and deliver an exceptional customer experience”, says Sam Bell, Head of Field and Network Services at NEC New Zealand.
Consolidating service desk tools to accelerate case resolution
Previously, NEC New Zealand used six different tools to manage field service requests, such as installing software or fixing network issues. This led to inconsistency in the management of incidents and problems. There was also no consolidated reporting on the statuses of requests or metrics related to the field service experience.
“We had a high number of aged cases, with some remaining open for years without escalation. There was also little transparency in staff accountability and service performance”, Sam says.
With support from ServiceNow Partner, Integrated Knowledge Consulting (IKC), NEC New Zealand rolled out a single portal to manage service requests with ServiceNow Customer Service Management. The portal allows customers to follow the same processes for request management and provides more details about issues. The insights gained enable the support team to seamlessly hand over tasks to field technicians for resolution.
Together with ServiceNow Field Service Management, NEC’s field service team can now track task completion and accelerate case resolution. Through the ability to connect customer service to its field service operations, NEC New Zealand is now able to drive greater transparency and efficiency.
When a customer logs a request for hardware support in the portal, ServiceNow automatically creates a Customer Service Management case and an accompanying field service work order task. The support agent then assigns tasks to the technicians with the right skill set. When the field job is completed, the customer immediately receives an email to accept the resolution.
“Thanks to the ServiceNow Workforce Optimization capability, we have reduced the resources to manage and triage requests by 50%, allowing those resources to move to more value-adding roles within our business. They can now focus on continuous improvement and deliver value to the business”, Sam says.
Slashing calls and telephone costs with one integrated system
With multiple incoming channels for support calls and around 20 inbound telephone lines distributed between a team of eight, there was no visibility for NEC New Zealand to track and manage the performance of field operations.
By integrating the Twilio spoke with ServiceNow Customer Service Management, customers can create new requests, update existing requests and receive text-to-speech updates by phone. This enables customers to easily interact with requests by adding activity notes or viewing comments provided by a field technician. They are also able to check on the rescheduling of work directly via the portal, instead of calling the service desk.
With this self-service capability, NEC New Zealand has reduced incoming calls by up to 90%, from almost 30 calls a day to just two or three, and achieved a 25% decrease in average call-handling time. On top of this, the number of service requests has been cut by 50%.
NEC New Zealand has also used ServiceNow Customer Service Management with ServiceNow Field Service Management to track service performance and improve staff accountability.
Through the automated workflow, ServiceNow triggers a call to a support agent if it is a Priority One ticket. That agent can simply push a number to change the status of request from new to open. If the call is not picked up by a support agent, ServiceNow will keep ringing or leave a voicemail through the Twilio phone system. ServiceNow also generates an email and text message to alert the agent to act on the request. This ensures that each work order has been assigned and dispatched to a technician, and can be completed within the scheduled time.
“ServiceNow provides an integrated system for our staff to deliver more seamless field service experiences to customers”, Sam explains. “Automation has saved us up to NZD6,000 on the phone system per month, and increased first-point-of-contact resolution by 30%”.
Delivering faster and better field service experiences
In the past, customers had to wait until technicians returned to the office to receive updates on job statuses. This process could often take several days, causing delays in service times and billing cycles.
Using single sign-on in the ServiceNow Field Service Management mobile app, technicians can now easily upload photos and add notes for a job at any time. If they are in areas with no internet service, data is synchronised automatically when connectivity is available. This helps field service teams to communicate real-time information to customers and reduce time lag in billing cycles.
“By unifying customer service and field operations on ServiceNow, we have cut the average mean time to resolution by up to 67%, from 60-90 days previously to just 30 now”, Sam says.
“With ServiceNow Field Service Management, our technicians are feeling more satisfied and engaged with their work as a result of the reduced time spent on administrative work”.
NEC New Zealand also uses ServiceNow to bolster field service support for Smart Transport projects. Firstly, it has built more than 100 active knowledge articles and deployed Knowledge Management in Microsoft Teams to empower support agents to resolve issues faster. It then integrated ServiceNow with network monitoring software PRTG to automatically select the right customer with a Priority One ticket. When that occurs, a list of knowledge articles is populated, and a technician prompted to take a particular course of action. For example, a technician may type an enquiry for detection point in the Smart Transport solution. ServiceNow then brings up the right knowledge articles on how to reset that to section point.
Supporting new business growth with improved speed of service
One of the biggest benefits for NEC New Zealand is having a single ServiceNow dashboard. Managers now have visibility into which requests are open and what tasks need to be carried out or closed off. They can also track SLAs for individual customer or service levels, such as biometric service performance for a government agency.
“ServiceNow Performance Analytics allows us to take a more objective view of what’s going on rather than the subjective view we had before”, Sam says. “It helps us to make better decisions on how to improve our field service and see the impact of those decisions at individual or organisational level”.
ServiceNow also provides a standardised approach for NEC New Zealand to replicate the same platform for the Smart Transport project in Australia, and improve collaboration between teams across countries.
“Staff in Christchurch and Canberra are using real-time and intelligent guidance in ServiceNow to manage Smart Transport jobs. It means they can work smarter and improve customer confidence”, Sam says.
Through the automation of customer case management, this has also created an opportunity for NEC New Zealand to expand its services to key business partners. For example, NEC New Zealand has been selected as the preferred supplier to provide Wi-Fi audit services, due primarily to the speed of information delivered to the field service teams.
“Having a single platform for field service operations, we have improved speed of service by around 33%. In turn, that has helped us increase new revenue opportunities”, Sam explains.
Continuous improvement on the roadmap
NEC New Zealand worked with IKC to roll out ServiceNow Customer Service Management and ServiceNow Field Service Management in phases. Despite having six different tools to decommission, the company was able to transition 90% of its customers to the ServiceNow platform within six months.
“IKC understands our business requirements and helps us to streamline ServiceNow into a product that works for the company”, Sam says.
NEC New Zealand is also looking to replace its health and safety system with ServiceNow. If an engineer has an accident, they will be able to quickly log that ticket in ServiceNow, allowing the HR team to take faster action. It also plans to include asset and cost management capability within ServiceNow to better track inventory and parts in a single repository. Automation of scheduling for field engineers and quoting systems for customers are also on the roadmap.
“With ServiceNow underpinning an integrated platform for field and customer service, we can focus on driving innovation and delivering a truly customer-centric strategy”, Sam concludes.