NTS inspires with passion for technology
NTS Netzwerk Telekom Service AG (NTS) is driven to create IT solutions with customer focus, quality and certified experience; it's reflected in its mission statement: "RELAX, WE CARE". Together with selected high-end manufacturers, NTS provides a range of networking, security, collaboration and cloud and data centre solutions. Its work is also characterised by a passion for technology and a commitment to providing services that delight customers and foster long-term partnerships.
Since the company was founded in 1995 by owners Alexander Albler and Hermann Koller, the customer has been at the centre of everything it does. Currently, 715 NTS employees work across 22 locations worldwide to support customers and optimise their chosen IT products and solutions. However, to enable seamless customer experiences and build solid foundations for the future, NTS needed to transform how it implemented key processes.
A highly customised system
The previous system NTS used to manage its customer service was not a conventional, standalone ticketing system—it was embedded in the company's ERP solution. While functional at the time, the platform didn't anticipate the future complexity of NTS's ITIL environment and after multiple tweaks and upgrades, meeting security requirements was increasingly challenging and upgrades could no longer be implemented or fulfilled.
"The system was so highly customised and the ERP platform and customer management system combined in such a complex way that changes to the ticketing tool could often not be implemented because they had such a massive impact on other processes", says Hans Peter Schoepf, Engineering Manager at NTS.
The system was also hosted internally, so engineers could only access the ticketing tool via a VPN connection.
"We wanted a more flexible, future-ready solution to efficiently handle ITIL processes in connection with customer information", explains Elisabeth Tschiggerl, Engineering Process Manager and Product Owner for ServiceNow at NTS. "We also wanted the ability to be more agile in our solution development, expand the platform to more areas of the business and tackle topics like Risk Management or Mobile Use".
To achieve this, NTS sought a single platform that could handle all ticketing while still communicating with other internal and external systems. It also needed interfaces that would allow upstream and downstream processes to continue without interruption; as the foundations of its financial system, these processes remained critical to NTS's overall operation.
A system for the future
With ServiceNow and implementation partner SOLVVision AG, NTS found a solution to its broad range of requirements while also providing a foundation for future needs.
Particularly important was the ability to reflect current processes accurately within the new system, while also enabling more flexible and powerful development. Interface compatibility was another key requirement, so new customer interfaces could be developed and implemented quickly. "Many customers use ServiceNow themselves, so the interface issue can be solved conveniently", emphasises Hans Peter.
"We had real chemistry with SOLVVision; their technical expertise, open communication and dynamism really appealed to us", says Elisabeth. "The collaboration was very much a partnership—both professionally and personally. They helped us to translate our requirements into ServiceNow. We learnt that some ways of working should change in order to use the out-of-the-box functionalities of ServiceNow where possible. But our partner also helped us with configurations where needed, so we could keep certain processes and workflows that had been working for us for many years".
In just 18 months, NTS replaced its outdated, highly customised ticketing tool with ServiceNow IT Service Management and introduced Customer Service Management (CSM) and ServiceNow's low-code App Engine.
"We had developed new functionalities and conditions–small and large–into the ERP system for 12 years", says Elisabeth. "With ServiceNow we could retain and incorporate these into the new system; that was a major benefit".
360-degree customer view
While the new CSM platform was designed to mirror existing processes at NTS, buy-in from employees was still important. To guarantee this, staff were involved in the changeover at an early stage through training sessions and focus groups. During a soft go-live, they also had the opportunity to try out all the functions on the test system.
"We created a smooth transition and the employees were satisfied relatively quickly", says Elisabeth.
Since implementing the ServiceNow platform, NTS's order-to-cash processes are now visible end-to-end, thanks to ServiceNow's integration with other critical solutions. Around 500 NTS employees are currently working with the system.
"We have more than 1,000 customers for whom we deliver technical services, so it was particularly important for us to establish all those links", says Elisabeth. "We now have a 360-degree view of customers in ServiceNow with all relevant cases, products, assets to manage and active contracts".
Empowering customers and employees
The new NTS Ticket Center service portal is now accessible to all customers and 721 customer contacts have already registered since go-live in March 2023.
The portal provides a clear overview of user information and submitted cases and allows customers to communicate with NTS staff. Furthermore, customers can view planned service changes and are involved in the approval process. Customer interfaces have also been reconfigured and automated, contributing to an average 10% improvement in case resolution times.
Now, around 500 technicians can view all customers' master data relevant to service provision at a glance and no longer have to assign the correct contracts for specific use cases from a long list. "It was very important for us to be able to map this concretely", says Kerstin Lackmaier, Engineering Process Manager and Service Owner at NTS. Engineers now have a fully digitised end-to-end process; they can now access cases directly, work on tickets and record their expenses—all in a single, digital workflow. This information can then flow back into the ERP system, where it is used for the billing process.
The customer portal now allows customers to access documents directly and review and approve change requests instead of printing, signing and reuploading them. In addition to providing a seamless customer experience, automated workflows and greater visibility of real-time information have enabled valuable time efficiencies, allowing agents to focus on delivering great customer service.
"This has been extremely beneficial", says Hans Peter. It has also positively impacted customer satisfaction: in over 1,000 customer surveys, more than 90% rated NTS as 'very good'.
Rolling out a long-term, cross-department solution
NTS is now looking to provide customer support for all 1,000 customers in the very near future. In addition, the support for NTS staff will also be gradually integrated into ServiceNow to provide employees with an Employee Service Center for internal matters.
"We're using App Engine to map individual Jira Desk services into ServiceNow. As a next step, other service desks—such as IT, Facilities, and Marketing—are set to follow", explains Kerstin.
Using two existing service desks, NTS was able to develop a basic app template within five months that will serve as the basis for future low-code app development.
"This is a big time-saver and we can connect more and more departments to ServiceNow", notes Elisabeth.
NTS will continue to leverage the power of the ServiceNow platform in the future as it tackles asset management, goes mobile and develops further interfaces both internally and for customers.
More importantly, NTS has established a long-term solution on which to build its customer service operation. "We have learnt to break down stale ways of thinking", says Kerstin. "For everything we could need, there is a solution in ServiceNow. It's very impressive".