Jeff Sheehan, Service Design, Consulting, SaaS, Support, Digital Transformation

1. Customer Service Design
Ideation
Jeff Sheehan
05 August 2019

2. Assumptions
A. There is a process process for launching a new customer (from project implementation to support services)
currently but more in flow than formally documented. Looking to get your ideas on setting up the formal
process and building it to scale as we grow.
B. My understanding is that Vinli uses its PS resources to tailor a solution for a client, suggesting each customer
will have a bespoke go-live plan, is that accurate? Yes - our development team will design and build specific
functionality and services based on a customer's requirements, on top of the core Vinli platform and
framework and yes each customer would then have a bespoke go-live plan. As above, need to think about
how this approach would scale.
C. There are contract and SLA documents for each EMEA customer, capturing their Level 1 obligations, Mutual
Definitions and Performance Obligations for both Parties.
D. There is very little B2B client information documented and in CRM currently.
E. Knowledge Articles need to be written/updated and put into Zendesk.
F. There are no client help desk connections to Vinli support desk, currently.
G. Customer On-Boarding and Education programs need to be created.
H. Nothing in support is scalable yet.
I. All support is in English.
J. Support coverage is not 7 x 24 x 365.
K. There is no template for the customer’s Level 1 support desk requirement (e.g. contract language, SLA
Addendum, Metrics, Escalation process, Staffing & Coverage, etc.)
L. There are no dedicated resources for Level 2/3 support and tickets are assigned ad hoc.
M. The Support Role is involved in the Pre-Sales stage for each EMEA customer.
N. The On Boarding Function applies to the Vinli customer only, NOT the Vinli customer’s End User.
O. The Vinli solution is more like an Enterprise SW deployment than a SaaS subscription business model.
!4

3. Customer Support Goals
• Engage customers proactively and reactively to accelerate time-
to-value, create amazing Customer Experiences and Growth
• Align all Sales & Marketing, Product, Professional Services and
Support to create scalable processes delivering amazing
customer experience supporting Unique Client Solutions and
Core Vinli Products across EMEA
• Support is a profit center
• Clarify the Aspirational and the Urgent
• Bring VOC to the team to enhance CX and EX
!5

4. My 11 Point Plan
Build On-Boarding function that operates continuously
Set up a Knowledge Base
Set up a Support Community
Get organised with Ticket Management
Set up an Auto Responder
Triage Fast
Assign Tickets properly
Never answer the Same Ticket Twice
Always Be Tagging
Link Up Processes Fast
Continuous Improvement
!6

5. Build On-Boarding function that
operates continuously
⚡ This is a vital step for Customer Experience and Growth and will be managed as a Lifecycle Program.
WHAT, WHY, WHEN? Align with Sales, Professional Services and Customer on the vision and expectations of the
Vinli solution for them and their End User community, i.e. what are the jobs to be done with the Vinli solution?
WHO? Assume On Boarding is for Vinli Customer Level 1 Support staff, Implementation Team(s) and Designated
Power Users/Internal Champions and Trainers but not the End Users.
HOW? Add a Support page to the www.Vin.li web site offering updated resources, including
• Introductory videos
• Website walkthroughs that show users around the interface
• In-Person on-site training sessions of one-to-many Champion launch team members
• Mass webinars
• One-on-ones
• Live-chat
• Blog explainers/feature introductions
• Context-driven email, which introduces features as users discover the app, rather than all at once
• In-app wizards, which slowly introduce users to new elements
• Tool tips, which float above common user interface items to allow a customer to learn more.
‼ Requires partnering with Technical Resources from Product and/or Professional Services.
⚠ Assume a high proportion of Vinli support requests come from new users.
⚠ Assume Customer’s On Boarding Experience is continuous due to staff turnover and solution expansion (e.g.
new apps, new use cases, new end users).
⚠ Assume a high-complexity use case with a Distance-to-Value of X weeks (what are you experiencing so far?)
!7

6. Set up a Knowledge Base
1. First and Foremost: Make Support Easy to Find
• Zendesk setup
• Add a Support tab to the www.Vin.li web site
2. Make Sure our FAQ Does a Good Job Helping our Users
% study recently conducted by Zendesk showed that 67% of users prefer self-service support over
speaking to a company representative with 91% saying they would use a knowledge base if it met their
needs.
• Provide a self-help knowledge base, and understand how well it’s working and use that knowledge to
improve it.
3. Understand Why You Get Support Requests, and Fix the Cause (When You Can)
• Bugs
• Missing features
• Confusing or hidden features
4. Make Sure All Support Requests Go To One Place
• Leverage tools Zendesk and Help Scout to collect customer communications from various channels
5. View Support Differently in Your App and On Your Website
• Not only for Technical Support, Customer Prospects will look at Support pages to learn more about
Vinli solutions
!8

7. Set up a Support Community
• Leverage our most passionate customer Champions to help each other within their own
organization and with their own end users.
• Provides relief to the support team of some of the Ticket burden.
• Provides additional social proof for Vinli, with a direct, informal line to customers (and possibly
End Users) and adding value to the participants who are interacting with each other.
• Provides Customer feedback and insights to be used for improvements.
• Can do it using Zendesk resources
!9

8. Get organised with Ticket
Management
Tickets provide structure and accountability for a support operation and Zendesk makes it easy
to do.
Considerations:
• Additional cost per agent - scaling with additional support capacity during busy periods
• Email parsing - accepting and sending emails to a support@vin.li email address
• Cross-channel support - decide how we want customers to send queries via social, in-app
or other channels, and make use of native Zendesk integrations to assign tickets across
these channels
• Third-party integrations - save time and expense using native Zendesk and Hubspot
integrations
• Reporting capabilities - essential for measurement and improvement; use an iterative
approach
!10

9. Set up an Auto Responder
⚡Crucial to the Customer Experience and one of the key things that users look for in world-
class support is to feel that their problems are listened to and being worked on.
• Autoresponder (using Zendesk) should be standard for all new queries - essentially to thank
users for their request, inform them how long they’ll have to wait for, and reassure them that
the request hasn’t just gone into a black hole.
“Hello and Thank You for contacting Vinli Support.
This is your confirmation that we have received your request and are working on
it.
Our goal is to resolve all queries within 48 hours.
Yours
The Vinli Support Team”
• This is a simple reassurance to a user who’s just taken the time to send in a request.
!11

10. Triage Fast
• We need a documented internal process for our triage system, which is vital for effectively
managing tickets at-scale, managing scant technical resources and capturing trends with Vinli
products and customers.
• Definitions of what is Low-priority, High-priority, Urgent and Important cases, if not already
instituted in Vinli, needs to be developed and documented and implemented in Zendesk.
• A simple tagging system identifying tickets which have significant revenue impact or require
investigation because they could be symptomatic of a broader problem and a process that
ensures these get dealt with first, no matter who’s working the queue - everybody should
understand that these tickets take priority.
• Marking tickets that don’t require immediate action (e.g. product suggestions) becomes
increasingly important to see a clear backlog of cases that require immediate attention as the
business scales.
!12

11. Assign Tickets properly
• I assume Vinli uses an all-hands-on-deck approach for the Level 2/3 support tickets; Some
sort of round-robin system where the Product and Professional Services staff takes a share.
• As the number of requests begins to increase though, this sort of system can quickly become
unsustainable.
• As we scale Vinli and demand for (expensive) technical support increases, we should consider
individual skill sets and workloads in assigning tickets for resolution — and have a process to
reassign cases according to the ability of the assigned person to actually process the request.
• Using a dedicated ‘First-Line Responder’ system can save time with by filtering a % of cases,
leaving fewer for the rest of the team to process.
• Using the Technical Support Analyst in EMEA for this role could help accelerate their learning
curve of the Vinli solution.
!13

12. Never answer the Same Ticket
Twice
• Vinli needs a dynamic knowledge management process that uses boilerplate ‘canned’
responses in Zendesk when dealing with the same ticket more than once.
• The process flow would look something like this:
• End User calls Customer Level 1 (known solutions to known problems) help desk;
• Level 1 help desk cannot resolve and Escalates to Vinli Support;
• Vinli Level 2/3 resolves the issue and closes the ticket in Zendesk;
• Support Manager creates Knowledge article for this (now) Known Issue and Resolution
and adds it to the (A) FAQ knowledge base, and (B) the Customer’s Level 1 knowledge
base.
• Perform periodic reviews of all canned responses, adding, editing or deleting as necessary
and using a simple tag such as “canned response required” will make it easy for the rest of the
team to flag new topic suggestions that can be added to the knowledge base.
• Once these responses are set up, we set a benchmark of 90 percent of incoming cases, even
if manual work was required along the way.
!14

13. Always Be Tagging
• Tagging is a discipline that pays dividends in speed of service, internal process improvements
and customer insights.
• Tags are words, or combinations of words, you can use to add more context to tickets and
topics. You can apply tags to tickets, users, and organizations. For example, you might want
to tag all requests that are actually sales inquiries with a tag like 'sales' or 'about_sales'. You
can then create a view or a report to track these requests.
• Writing a list covering common ticket subject matters makes tagging a a one-click process for
support staff using Zendesk.
• Tags provide an unlimited amount of flexibility to manage and customize support workflow:
• Add tags to tickets and use those tags to create custom workflows.
• Agents can add tags manually. Admins can also enable automatic ticket tagging to automatically add
tags based on keywords in ticket descriptions.
• Add tags to users and organizations.
• Tags that have been added to users and organizations are also automatically added to tickets.
• Search for tickets by tag.
• Use tags in your business rules (automations, macros, and triggers) to create custom workflows.
• Create views and reports by tags.
• Analyze tag use to understand support request trends.
!15

14. Link Up Processes Fast
Begin with the End in Mind ➧
✓Inventory & Assess existing
culture, process, tools
✓Create/Revise for Scalability
✓Align with Vinli mission, values
and commitments
✓Use Zendesk and CRM tools to
capture customer knowledge
✓Use knowledge to eliminate
tickets, process friction, waste
✓Use knowledge to train and
enable customers
✓How is CSAT captured and
used?
✓Measure things & Improve
16
Sales & Marketing
Professional Services
Product Development
Support
Customer
Knowledge
Service
Escalation
Customer
Experience
On Boarding
& Education

15. Continuous Improvement*
*Graphic courtesy of Kronos web site !17
Support is not a “set it and forget it” kind of thing. We need to constantly iterate, analyze and improve.