Broad portfolio with added value
SmartIT Services AG is a Swiss IT service provider specialising in IT infrastructure, workplace and customer service management. With its 70 employees, this small-but-powerful business offers innovative and customised IT services that help small and medium-sized enterprises achieve real added value. The company’s broad portfolio includes solutions for collaboration, IT security and hybrid infrastructure, as well as project management, consulting and support. What’s more, as a service provider for ServiceNow, it offers IT service management and customer service management services on the ServiceNow platform.
The company’s commitment to customers is clear not only through its dedication and reliable solutions, but also through its enablement goals—SmartIT strives to include and actively involve customers in all their processes. “We want to be able to present all information to the customer, be it tickets, user data, services, contracts, invoices or licences”, says Phil Kiener, Head of Value Stream Customer Service Management at SmartIT. That’s why SmartIT is using ServiceNow IT Service Management (ITSM). This allows it to offer its customers high-quality services and access to all relevant service information via a service portal.
Positioned for the future
Before SmartIT introduced ServiceNow with ISO 20000 certification for service management, its previous ticketing tool could not meet the certification requirements. What’s more, employees could not use the former ticketing solution to input new processes, integrate it with new tools or make any changes.
Beyond ticketing and enabling more capabilities, ITSM is able to support the company’s digitisation and automation journey, allowing for changes and further development in the future. “ServiceNow is such a strongly developed platform that continually builds in many new functions, that’s one of the reasons we use it throughout SmartIT”, says Phil. ServiceNow has been used throughout the company since 2018.
Six-month implementation
The company wanted to pass on the Now Platform benefits to its customers and introduced ServiceNow Customer Service Management (CSM) as well as a new ERP system to simplify and accelerate its slow billing process. The new API between ServiceNow and the ERP systems aimed to automate processes for data entry, service recording and billing. “That was a relatively big effort”, says Phil. “We had to continue to operate all of the old interfaces and both systems had to be started at the same time on 31st December”.
The project’s planning phase was incredibly detailed to ensure successful delivery. First, the invoicing process was reviewed and recorded end-to-end. It was then optimised, checking which steps could be automated and which should continue to be carried out manually.
Even with the planning and the scope of the project, the ERP implementation and adapting it to ServiceNow took only six months. “It was a relatively big effort”, says Phil. “We had to keep all the old interfaces running, while working towards a deadline when both systems had to be launched at the same time”.
Additional improvements include an approval process built in, within the service records. It combines several previously manual processes, and links Azure with the Now Platform. This results in automatically triggered invoices in the ERP that summarise all services for the customer, including links to items such as case and service.
Ticket processing time reduced by 60%
Implementing CSM resulted in more efficient, independent work. Employees can get a better and faster overview of any invoice status, answer queries more quickly and access the invoices at the customer site through the portal. They can exchange information more easily and find solutions faster. Because all queries are now recorded as tickets, ticket volumes have increased by 20% but the quality of processing has improved due to the higher level of detail available about each case. Processing time has decreased by 60%, allowing four service desk agents to handle around 1,200 tickets per month.
At the same time, the portal has reduced administrative work by a third. In the area of invoicing alone, processing time has been reduced by 90% thanks to automation and optimised end-to-end processes. The elimination of administrative and recurring tasks has freed up a total of 2.5 positions in administration and customer service. These employees will be deployed in other projects following internal retraining to do other high value tasks.
Increase in efficiency and transparency
“The biggest advantage with ServiceNow is that we have massively increased efficiency and transparency”, says Phil. “This has, of course, translated into effective processes for the customer and enabled us to mature our digitisation. And, most importantly, we can now very actively involve the customer in all processes via the portal”.
The customers have a digital history of their invoices and the ability to easily retrieve them, while also tracking individual items and tickets using links. As a result, sales callbacks have dropped by half and if there is a problem or a query, the customer can act directly via the portal. The convenient and quick overview of the services, contracts and invoices has improved the overall customer experience improving customer satisfaction by 30%. “This has resulted in greater loyalty and has given the customer a very positive impression of us”, says Phil. “We were also able to significantly reduce the administrative effort”.
Further extending time savings
To further improve the customer experience, SmartIT is connecting the ALSO Cloud Marketplace to ServiceNow. With an interface to the company’s most important distributor—implemented with App Studios to make it available as a standalone app in the ServiceNow Store—items are created within ServiceNow and the ordering processes are automated. This offers two advantages: Customers have access to all the information in the Marketplace and, at the same time, they can view their licence information and orders in the Service Portal. “It’s a big time saver for the customers because they can manage the processes and licences themselves”, Phil says. “Ultimately, we want to ensure that all information is linked together and available in one place—this helps our customers, the account manager, service desk and the specialists”. SmartIT implemented the interface with App Studios in order to make it available as an independent app in the ServiceNow store.
Impressed by the speed with which ServiceNow is making new features available, SmartIT have many ideas for the future. Initial focus will be on their Configuration Management Database (CMDB) where all services are to be integrated and automated as much as possible. In addition, ServiceNow’s custom low-code application development platform App Engine will come into play for any new requirements, such as planning and mapping service level reporting. With all the foundations already in place, the only way is forward. Especially because the Now Platform has become an integral part of SmartIT’s operations. In fact, Phil comments: “ServiceNow is the main tool in the organisation, nothing works without it anymore”.