With the merger of Inexchange and Scancloud, the departments of the new company have become bigger and stronger.
But the resources must of course be used wisely. The transformation of support is a prime example. Two former support units have become a jointly titled Customer Success.
- This refines our service relationship with customers. We can be more proactive and become a stronger support in their long-term development," says department manager Lars Andersson.
Thanks to months of careful planning before the merger, the transition to the new organization has gone exactly as smoothly as we had hoped, which we'll tell you more about later, but first to the most important question of all:
What benefits does this create for customers?
- Above all, it means that customers can benefit from both companies' respective product portfolios. Inexchange and Scancloud stood on their own two feet. Inexchange has been strong in customer invoicing, while Scancloud has specialized in supplier invoicing. Now that we have become one company, these strengths are coming together. Together we will have a very good overall offer with both customer and supplier invoicing, says Lars Andersson.
Another effect, which is also customer-related, is that support will gradually become more in line with what is needed. The repetitive answers to frequent questions will be automated to an even greater extent. Something that benefits customers more than you might imagine at first thought. The consequence is that time is freed up for analysis, follow-up, advice and recommendations. It creates greater scope for valuable interaction.
Lars emphasizes that the process that has begun feels very exciting.
- We are on a journey of change, partly due to the merger of course, but also from being a reactive support department to becoming a more proactive customer success organization, he says and elaborates:
- The fact that simpler cases take up space in the total amount of incoming questions, when these can be solved most quickly on their own via our automatic support, does not benefit either the customers or us. We want to work more forward-looking and spend time on the right things, to have meetings and check-ins with customers to ensure, for example, that they get started with a product and take advantage of all the benefits of the service.
Call it interaction if you like. It's about facilitating digitization, taking advantage of the obvious benefits that are made possible and, as a customer, getting help to be at the forefront of a development that is progressing at a rapid pace.
- We see very clearly how needs and behavior are changing. It's really only logical that we change and become more of a service desk. That is, we form a kind of advisory function and that way build long-term relationships with customers, Lars specifies.
The merger also brings positive aspects for the new company internally.
- The immediate gain for us in Customer Success is that we have six new colleagues based in Östersund. Thanks to this addition, additional knowledge and skills have been added to the organization. We have also made sure to merge our systems. Since the beginning of the year, we have been working in the same case management system. This makes it easier for us to transfer knowledge and learn from each other. It makes us even better equipped," says Lars.
In fact, it is already noticeable that customers have benefited from this.
- Yes, we can see that old InExchange customers, who used the scanning service when Scancloud was our subcontractor, now have their cases sent directly to Östersund for further processing. The detour via us is gone. Customers get faster answers and their cases resolved faster.
Lars Andersson emphasizes that the strengthened organization also provides increased scope to implement more AI technology.
- When we distribute incoming cases, as in this case directly to our team in Östersund, time is freed up that can be spent on other things instead. Like improving our own tools and systems. We have a strong focus on AI and improving efficiency there," he says, explaining further:
- Our AI model right now analyzes the support cases so that we can categorize them based on topics and solution to respond in an efficient and fast way. Which of course means a positive benefit for customers in the end. The model is also subject to continuous improvement. What we have seen so far is just the beginning.
The same goes for Customer Success. The department is off to a flying start.
But even that is just the beginning.